Justice Dept. Nixes Neb. Abortion Ruling

[Rose Siding]

LINCOLN, Neb. -- The Justice Department argued Tuesday that a Nebraska judge who ruled that the federal ban on a type of abortion is unconstitutional ignored evidence gathered by Congress in passing the law.

The appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals challenges the September ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf of Lincoln.

"The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 prohibits ... one particular method of abortion that Congress, after nine years of hearings, found to be gruesome, inhumane, never necessary to preserve the health of women, and less safe than other readily available abortion methods," the appeal said.

Kopf ruled the ban, while containing an exception to save the life of the mother, is unconstitutional because it makes no such exception for the woman's health. He also said the ban posed an undue burden on a woman's right to an abortion.
.....
Doctors who use D&X have said it is the safest method of abortion when the mother's health is threatened by heart disease, high blood pressure or cancer.

Kopf ruled that Congress ignored the most experienced doctors in determining that the banned procedure would never be necessary to protect the health of the mother.

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-abortion-trials,0,7734922.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[Erika]

1. The Bush Histrionics Get So Old.

The ONLY time I know of a partial birth ban abortion peing performed was with a mother who found out in the last trimester that the baby had only one heart chamber and would never survive the journey through the birth canal. The abortion was done as a kindness to the mother. The baby would not have survived.

How, the Bushies has blown this procedure up as an emotional issue is unreal. At the Congressional hearings, they had professionals reiterating this procedure was only done on fetuses who would not survive the birthing process.

Republicans just don't trust women.

[aquart]

2. Democrats have husbands and wives. And partners. And lovers.

Republicans have little women.

[The Doctor.]

3. Well put...

Though as a cognitive psychologist I am leary of 3rd trimester proceedure - I also know that one cannot pre-empt the welfare of the mother.

It was a good and sound ruling in my opinion.

[VivaKerry]

4. As an academic, then....

I would assume that you have actually researched the statistics on WHEN and HOW OFTEN this third trimester procedure is performed. You might be surprised at your 'findings' were you to look into the actual statistics. But I like a good mystery, so I won't let on what the numbers are..... but I will say that the real numbers (when and how often) such a 'trimester procedure' is performed makes your emotional 'response' null and void. But as an academic, you are surely aware of the necessity of looking at stats and numbers and the such before responding to the 'emotion' of it all. as a psycologist and all.. right???

[The Doctor.]

5. "Emotional response"?

Did you even read what I wrote?

Your response quite lends itself to emotion indeed - why is that?

[Catfight]

16. I agree, VivaKerry had more emotion wrapped up in one paragraph

than your whole post, that I found completely factual void of emotion. Must be that 'viva' Catholic emotion pumping through those must-be-laws-that-only-affect-women mentality. Why do people insist that only women should have laws imposed upon our bodies? I see no laws that deter men from creating unwanted babies? Why is that?

Me thinks you might want to change the name VivaKerry to VivaBush...IMO

[The Doctor.]

19. I think VivaKerry thought my distaste for

Decompression and Extraction was based on personal emotions - therefore he/she would be in the 'pro-choice' column rather than 'pro-life'.

As for my reason for being 'leery' of such late term proceedures, it is simply an ethical consideration. Many Obstetrician/Gynecologists will not perform the procedure due to the ethical consideration of viability.
I happen to in the same camp both because of foetal viability and developed cognitive associations.

I do still of course believe that the concerns of the mother come first.

behttp://brain.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/127/2/321

I believe VivaKerry mistook me for a "Pro-life" zealot.

[Trajan]

22. I smell something .....

[EST]

9. Academic?

Leary-leery?

[The Doctor.]

17. LOL - yeah... I do those once in a while...

[iverglas]

21. here's a clue

I mean, I hate to spoil a mystery and all, but one seems needed.

"I am leary of 3rd trimester proceedure"

The procedure supposedly described by the ban on "partial birth abortion" -- the D&X procedure -- is overwhelmingly performed in the SECOND trimester of pregnancy.

You appear to have fallen for the shell game incessantly engaged in by the anti-choice right wing: is "partial-birth abortion" under the "late-term abortion" shell, or the "gruesome procedure" shell?

The fact is that it is NOT usually under the "late-term procedure" shell -- and that it falls, most of the time, under the "second-term of pregnancy" shell, which brings it squarely within this part of your Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade:

(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.

As so often in the discussion of reproductive rights, it's a matter of "with friends like ...".

We don't need uninformed argument and opinion being used to (reluctantly) back up the cause of reproductive choice.

D&X is a procedure used largely around mid-pregnancy, when no issues that might cause concern to a cognitive psychologist might arise in relation to the fetus. And any such issues that might arise -- say, in the final four weeks of pregnancy, when it is possible that pain sensation can be experienced by a fetus -- can be dealt with by the use of anaesthetic if necessary ... which it would not be in the case of the kind of gravely defective fetus that such a procedure would, very rarely, be used for at that stage.

[burrowowl]

8. Repug little women

should preferrably be barefoot and pregnant.
Remeber Hilter's KKK for women: Kinder, Kutchen und Kirken (children, kicthen and church).

[SeattleDem]

20. I know a very similar case

it's true, people who want to ban this option make terrible assumptions about a woman's decision to use it.

No one has a late-term abortion because they WANT to. They agonize over it and do it because they HAVE to. Because it's safer and healthier for ALL involved than a continued pregnancy and delivery would be.

If you haven't been thru pregnancy and a long, hard, difficult labor and birth, you shouldn't impose your views about the risks and benefits of continued pregnancy for a fetus with no expectation of life.

But hey, I support women who are already born and believe that they are autonomous people who can make appropriate health decisions, which is different from what the opposition supports.

[sandnsea]

6. A D&X is never necessary

Because a doctor can always do a D&E. Is that not correct doctors? And why on earth did we lose the D&X in favor of the D&E? Isn't the late term D&E the procedure where they chop the fetus up?

[burrowowl]

7. I have a friend whose baby died

at 7 months in utero and they did a D&C (I guess the baby was dismembered to get it out). The baby had been dead for a week, after awhile I think it might not have been good for her health.
Etopic pregancies, eclampsia, etc.???? Let them both die?
I hate RW propaganda.

[Seabiscuit]

10. Oh, puleez - "argued" does not equal "Nixes"

[MaineDem]

11. Agreed; very misleading headline! (nt)

[Rose Siding]

12. They strive to make their language reflect

the new balance of power in the United States of Republicans

[snippy]

13. Here is what the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Has to say.

Statement on So-Called "Partial Birth Abortion" Law

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Washington, DC -- The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) continues to oppose so-called "partial birth abortion" laws, including the conference committee bill approved by the US House of Representatives yesterday and sent to the US Senate. "Partial birth abortion" is a non-medical term apparently referring to a particular abortion procedure known as intact dilatation and extraction (intact D&X, or D&X), a rare variant of a more common midterm abortion procedure known as dilatation and evacuation (D&E).

In 2000, the US Supreme Court struck down a Nebraska "partial birth abortion" law in the case of Stenberg v. Carhart, ruling that the law violated the US Constitution by (1) failing to provide any exception "for the preservation of the health of the mother," and (2) being so broadly written that it could prohibit other types of abortion procedures such as D&E, thereby "unduly burdening a women's ability to choose abortion itself." The bill now before the Senate, which its supporters claim can meet any constitutional test, blatantly disregards the two-pronged test the Supreme Court carefully established in Stenberg.

As noted in a 1997 ACOG Statement of Policy, reaffirmed in 2000, and in ACOG's amicus curiae brief filed in the Stenberg case, ACOG continues to object to legislators taking any action that would supersede the medical judgment of a trained physician, in consultation with a patient, as to what is the safest and most appropriate medical procedure for that particular patient.

ACOG's Statement of Policy explains why ACOG believes such legislation to be "inappropriate, ill advised, and dangerous." The policy statement notes that although a select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which intact D&X would be the only option to protect the life or health of a woman, intact D&X "may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman, and only the doctor, in consultation with the patient, based upon the woman's particular circumstances, can make this decision (emphasis added)."

The Statement of Policy further reads that such legislation has the potential to outlaw other abortion techniques that are critical to the lives and health of American women. This was the second basis upon which the Supreme Court struck down the Nebraska law in the Stenberg case. The Court will invariably strike down laws that are overly broad or imprecisely drawn. Bills that frequently use terms -- such as "partial birth abortion" -- that are not recognized by the very constituency (physicians) whose conduct the law would criminalize, and that purport to address a single procedure yet describe elements of other procedures used in obstetrics and gynecology would not meet the Court's test.

In this case, the bill before the Senate fails to respect the Stenberg test because bill supporters flagrantly refuse to include an exception for the health of a woman. Instead, legislators try to circumvent the Court's requirements by issuing their own opinion to the nation's physicians and patients that such a procedure is never needed to protect a woman's health -- notwithstanding opposing opinions from the medical community.

The medical misinformation currently circulating in political discussions of abortion procedures only reinforces ACOG's position: in the individual circumstances of each particular medical case, the patient and physician -- not legislators -- are the appropriate parties to determine the best method of treatment.

http://www.acog.org/from_home/publications/press_releases/nr10-03-03.cfm

I do not see how any intelligent person can disagree with this. Congress should not practice medicine.

[rockedthevoteinMA]

14. I'm sooo grateful all those old, fat, rich, white men are so

concerned with my reproductive habits! (sarcasm off)

So let me get this straight:

Pro-life + Pro-death penalty = Christian Values?

[snippy]

15. Anti-abortion people rarely are pro-life. n/t

[VegasWolf]

18. Love how repigs want to legislate a woman's body while

at the same time ignore science. Welcome to
19th century Amerikka. Next to be legislated, the
difference between sinning and being possessed.

[Seabiscuit]

23. Is that Tom Daschle on the far right?

[snippy]

24. No. That is Mike "Coathanger" DeWine from Ohio. n/t