[Infowarrior] - OT: SCOTUS Backs Ban on Abortion Procedure

[Richard Forno]

Court Backs Ban on Abortion Procedure
Apr 18 10:18 AM US/Eastern
By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press Writer
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8OJ2HV82&show_article=1
                   
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a
controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the
long- awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed
and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's
constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be
unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony
Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with
President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice
Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.

It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over
how‹not whether‹to perform an abortion.

Abortion rights groups have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a
woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after
12 weeks of pregnancy, although government lawyers and others who favor the
ban said there are alternate, more widely used procedures that remain legal.

The outcome is likely to spur efforts at the state level to place more
restrictions on abortions.

More than 1 million abortions are performed in the United States each year,
according to recent statistics. Nearly 90 percent of those occur in the
first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and are not affected by Tuesday's ruling.

Six federal courts have said the law that was in focus Wednesday is an
impermissible restriction on a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The law bans a method of ending a pregnancy, rather than limiting when an
abortion can be performed.


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