Supreme Court to consider second Bush appeal for abortion ban
Court to Address Abortion Restrictions
By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
The Supreme Court said yesterday that it will broaden its review of whether a federal law banning a controversial abortion method is constitutional, taking the second case in four months that will reveal whether the court has shifted significantly on abortion rights with two new conservative members.
The court agreed to rule next term on a California case in which a federal appeals court struck down the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, a statute that was a political victory for abortion opponents but that lower courts have been finding unconstitutional.
The court said in February that it would consider a separate case in which a group of Nebraska doctors had challenged the same law. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, based in St. Louis, ruled last year that the federal ban is unconstitutional because the law does not provide an exception that would allow doctors to use the abortion technique if a woman's life is in danger.
In accepting the California case, Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America , the court essentially agreed to evaluate a wider range of legal issues that the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit cited last winter when it, too, found the law unconstitutional.
The 9th Circuit found the law posed an undue burden on women because the statute is so vague it could be interpreted to forbid other abortion methods beyond one that is used rarely late in pregnancy. In addition, the 9th Circuit dealt with whether a court could "remedy" the law to permit the procedure when women's health is imperiled, ruling that it could not because lawmakers had deliberately omitted such an exception.
The high court did not say whether it intends to consider the two cases together.
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