Supreme Court Upholds Federal Abortion Ban
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 18, 2007 Supreme Court Decision Undermines Washington’s Voter-approved Protections for Choice. Seattle, WA – Blythe Chandler, deputy director of NARAL Pro-Choice Washington issued the following statement in response to today’s Supreme Court decision in the Federal Abortion Ban case. “Today’s decision shows Bush’s appointees have moved the Court in a direction that could further undermine Roe v. Wade and protections for women’s health. Residents of Washington should know that today’s decision means a Bush-backed anti-choice law now trumps our state’s greater protections for choice. Voters in Washington rejected a similar measure (Initiative 694) at the polls in 1998. Elections matter. An anti-choice Congress and anti-choice president used the political process to push this ban all the way to the Supreme Court. In fact, the same politicians behind this abortion ban also block stem-cell research and interfered in the Terri Schiavo case. The door is now open for politicians like George W. Bush to interfere even more in our personal, private medical decisions. The Court has disregarded the medical opinion of leading doctors who oppose the ban. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists—which represents 90 percent of the OB GYNs in this country — says the ban is harmful to women’s health and interferes with medical decision making. Indeed, this is a setback for all Americans who believe politicians should not make private, personal medical decisions for the rest of us.” Background The Supreme Court struck down an almost identical state law as unconstitutional in 2000, and every court to hear a challenge to this first-ever federal ban on abortion declared it unconstitutional. Since the Court’s decision in 2000, President Bush appointed Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court and abortion foes see these appointments as an opportunity to undermine the Roe v. Wade decision. NARAL Pro-Choice Washington lobbied strongly against the law and signed onto an amicus brief to the Court arguing that the only appropriate remedy for the ban’s constitutional flaws was to bar its enforcement entirely. ###
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