What follows is a media advisory from the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) in Washington, D.C., issued on January 4, 2006, regarding an action by the U.S. Supreme Court, pertinent to partial-birth abortion, that may occur on Friday, January 6, 2006. For additional information or to arrange an interview on this subject, send e-mail to mediarelations@nrlc.org or call 202-626-8825.
PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION RETURNS TO THE U.S. SUPREME COURT
WASHINGTON (January 3, 2006) -- On Friday, January 6, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to decide whether to review a lower-court ruling that has blocked enforcement of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, a bill signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 5, 2003. The Court may announce its decision on whether to accept the case on January 6, or on Monday, January 9.
In 2000, five justices of the Supreme Court, including soon-to-retire Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, ruled that the abortion right originally created in Roe v. Wade allows an abortionist to perform a partial-birth abortion any time he sees a 'health' benefit, even if the woman and her unborn baby are entirely healthy. (Stenberg v. Carhart, June 28, 2000). This ruling struck down the ban on partial-birth abortion that had been enacted by Nebraska, and rendered unenforceable the similar bans that more than half the states had enacted.
Nevertheless, in 2003 Congress approved and President Bush signed a national law, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. When he signed the ban, the President called partial-birth abortion "a terrible form of violence [that] has been directed against children who are inches from birth." He spoke the literal truth.
The federal law bans "partial-birth abortion," a legal term of art, defined in the law itself as any abortion in which the baby is delivered "past the [baby's] navel . . . outside the body of the mother," OR "in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother," BEFORE being killed. The complete official text of the law, in a searchable format, is here: http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/partial_birth_abortion_Ban_act_final_language.htm
The law would allow the method if it was ever necessary to save a mother's life.
The federal law has faced legal challenges in three different federal circuits, and its enforcement has been blocked by court orders. Federal district courts in all three circuits ruled that the federal law violated the 2000 Supreme Court ruling. In one of these cases, Gonzales v. Carhart, that adverse judgment was affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The Bush Administration has asked the Supreme Court to review the Eighth Circuit ruling, and it is that "cert petition" on which the Court will conference on January 6.
"In 2000, five justices of the Supreme Court in effect ruled that Roe v. Wade guarantees the right to perform partial-birth abortions at will," said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson. "Unless the Court accepts this new case and abandons the extreme position it took in 2000, partly born premature infants will continue to die by having their skulls punctured with seven-inch scissors."
Meanwhile, the other two legal challenges to the federal law remain under review by the U.S. courts of appeals for the Second Circuit and Ninth Circuit. In addition, the Commonwealth of Virginia has filed a request for the Supreme Court to review a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, holding that a similar state law, banning "partial birth infanticide," contradicts the 2000 Supreme Court decision. (Richmond Medical Center for Women v. Hicks)
THE CURRENT COURT AND ROE V. WADE
Among currently sitting Supreme Court justices, six (including Sandra Day O'Connor) have voted in favor of Roe v. Wade -- that is, in support of the doctrine that abortion must be allowed for any reason until "viability" (about five and one-half months), and for "health" reasons (broadly defined) even during the final three months of pregnancy. Two justices (Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas) have voted to overturn Roe, and one (John Roberts) has not voted on the matter. Justice Anthony Kennedy, although a supporter of Roe, voted in the 2000 Stenberg case to allow Nebraska to ban the partial-birth abortion method.
A refutation of the myth that the Supreme Court has been divided 5 to 4 on Roe v. Wade, issued by the Annenberg Center's FactCheck.org, is posted here: http://www.factcheck.org/article176.html
On September 14, 2005, the Los Angeles Times published an eye-opening examination, written by its veteran Supreme Court reporter, on the true scope of the "right to abortion" created by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and more recent rulings, which are still often badly misunderstood. (It is here.) The article also summarizes documents that reveal the internal processes at the Supreme Court that produced Roe v. Wade in 1973.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES ON PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION
The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the nation's major right-to-life organization, led the coalition that resulted in enactment of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003, after an eight-year fight. The NRLC website contains the Internet's most expansive archive of documents pertaining to all facets of the debate over partial-birth abortion, here:
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/index.html
Any journalist or editorialist examining the issue of partial-birth abortion will benefit from reading, at a minimum, "Partial-Birth Abortion: Misconceptions and Realities," a memo written by NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson, who played a key role in the long debate over the legislation. This memo addresses common misconceptions and misinformation about partial-birth abortion, with links to primary documents, including interviews with partial-birth abortionists and investigative reports in American Medical News, the New York Times, PBS, and other news media. The memo is here: http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/PBAall110403.html
The memo addresses these topics: the actual language and legal intent of the bill; why "partial-birth abortion" is a legal term of art that is NOT synonymous with various pseudo-medical jargon terms used by the law's opponents; how use of the nebulous label "late-term abortion" distorts the debate; whether President Bush's statement (November 5, 2003) that partial-birth abortion is violence directed against those who are "inches from birth" is medically and legally accurate; evidence regarding how many partial-birth abortions are performed; acknowledgments by the National Coalition of Abortion Providers that "in the vast majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20 weeks or more along"; key turning points in the eight-year congressional debate; and polls of doctors, obstetricians, nurses, and the general public regarding the ban. The memo also discusses how documented medical illustrations of two different abortion methods can allow the public to better evaluate claims and counterclaims on what the law actually covers and does not cover.
A collection of key documents pertinent to various medical claims surrounding partial-birth abortion -- some of which are real eye-openers -- are posted here:
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/keymedical.html
During the summer of 2004, U.S. District Judge Richard Casey presided over a trial in New York in one of the three legal challenges to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (National Abortion Federation v. Gonzales), during which he directly questioned a number of abortionists regarding how partial-birth abortions are performed. Attorney Cathy Cleaver Ruse has prepared a distillation of that eye-opening testimony, just published in the current (Spring 2005) issue of the Human Life Review under the title "Partial-Birth Abortion on Trial." That article is posted in PDF format here.
Following the trial, on August 26, 2004, Judge Casey issued an opinion stating, "The Court finds that the testimony at trial and before Congress establishes that D&X [partial-birth abortion] is a gruesome, brutal, barbaric, and uncivilized medical procedure . . . [and finds] credible evidence that D&X abortions subject fetuses to severe pain." Nevertheless, Judge Casey also ruled that the federal ban was in conflict with the 2000 Supreme Court ruling in Stenberg.
National Right to Life is the nation's largest pro-life organization, with 50 state affiliates and approximately 3,000 local affiliates nationwide. NRLC works through legislation and education to protect those threatened by abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and assisted suicide.
