|
Storer
Foundation
Files
Brief
in
Partial-Birth
Abortion
Ban
Act
Case
As
readers
of
TN&V
and
National
Right
to
Life
News
know,
last
February,
six
years
after
the
Supreme
Court
overturned
Nebraska's
ban
on
partial-birth
abortions,
a
newly
reconstituted
High
Court
agreed
to
hear
arguments
on a
lower
court
ruling
that
blocked
enforcement
of
the
federal
Partial-Birth
Abortion
Ban
Act.
The
February
21
decision
to
hear
Gonzales
v.
Carhart
next
fall
came
on
the
Court's
first
official
day
of
business
after
Justice
Samuel
A.
Alito,
Jr.,
replaced
Sandra
Day
O'Connor.
A
slew
of
"friend
of
the
court"
briefs
have
been
or
soon
will
be
filed.
I'd
like
to
take
this
opportunity
to
briefly
talk
about
a
brief
filed
by
the
Horatio
R.
Storer
Foundation,
an
educational
foundation
of
the
National
Right
to
Life
Committee.
The
brief
does
a
very
commendable
job
explaining
where
the
U.S.
Court
of
Appeals
for
the
Eighth
District
erred
in
striking
down
the
Partial-Birth
Abortion
Ban
Act.
The
court's
decision
"misapprehended
the
nature
of
the
governmental
interests
at
stake
in
banning
partial-birth
abortion,
neglecting
to
recognize
an
enhanced—indeed,
compelling—governmental
interest
in
guarding
against
infanticide
and
in
protection
of
the
fetus
whose
head
or
trunk-beyond-navel
have
entirely
emerged
from
the
body
of
the
mother,"
according
to
the
brief.
Congress
explicitly
recognized
a
new
and
compelling
interest
in
the
fetus
sufficient
to
override
any
abortion
liberty
that
arises
when
a
child
is
effectively
half
way
outside
a
mother's
body,
the
brief
continues.
Put
another
way,
when
the
child
is
already
substantially
outside
mother's
body
--and
because
any
health
risk
to
the
mother
from
forbidding
physicians
to
perform
abortions
in
which
they
plan
to
kill
a
child
half
way
outside
the
maternal
body
is,
at
most,
insignificant"--
any
"right
to
abortion"
is
virtually
extinct
.
In
addition,
the
court
also
"misconstrued"
the
Act,
the
brief
argues.
The
2003
Partial-Birth
Abortion
Ban
Act
does
not
"forbid
some
forms
of
abortion
other
than
the
partial-birth
or
intact
dilation
and
extraction
procedure."
In
other
words,
the
court
blurred
the
clear
distinctions
made
by
the
law.
James
Bopp,
Jr.,
Counsel
for
the
Storer
Foundation,
in a
news
release
announcing
the
brief,
said,
"A
fully
born
fetus
is a
child
and
person
under
the
Constitution,
so
the
people
obviously
have
a
right
to
protect
a
fetus
that
is
halfway
there.
It
makes
no
sense
to
claim
there
is a
constitutional
right
to
deliberately
kill
a
child
who
is
already
halfway
outside
the
mother's
body
and
a
few
steps
away
from
a
crib."
He
concluded,
"And
it
makes
no
sense
to
claim
that
delivering
children
halfway
out
of
the
mother
is
somehow
necessary
for
maternal
health."
Please
send
any
comments
or
questions
to
Dave
Andrusko
at
dandrusko@nrlc.org. |
