Wednesday's Supreme Court decision to uphold the nationwide ban on a certain type of second-trimester abortion is troubling in that it represents a chipping away of the reproductive rights established in Roe v. Wade. In a 5-4 ruling, which does not include any exceptions to protect the health of women, the court supported the ban passed by the Republican-controlled Congress in 2003. The banned procedure (although the ban is vague enough to include all second-trimester abortions) is one where a physician partially removes a fetus and then aborts it rather than aborting the fetus inside a woman's uterus prior to removing it.