Second Circuit Judge Chester Straub was the lone dissenter, and he objected strongly to the decision. According to LifeNews, Straub wrote, "Allowing a physician to destroy a child as long as one toe remains within the mother would place society on the path towards condoning infanticide." The NY Times reports,
He wrote that he does not believe a woman's right to end her pregnancy under Roe v. Wade in 1973 "extends to the destruction of a child that is substantially outside her body."Although his dissent suggests that a woman has a constitutional right to kill her baby inside the womb, Straub's position is commendable, if not refreshing, at least relative to that of his peers.
Tuesday also brought a similar but unanimous ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Jay at StoptheACLU writes, "Brutally killing babies by partially removing them from the womb, puncturing their skulls, and sucking their brains out is protected by the Constitution?"
Resources: A Distant Thunder, Partial Birth Abortion Archive
