Fairly big news:
Quote:
US top court upholds law banning some abortions
WASHINGTON, April 18 (Reuters) - A closely divided U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the first nationwide ban on a specific abortion procedure, restricting abortion rights in a ruling on one of the nation's most divisive and politically charged issues.
By a 5-4 vote, the high court rejected two challenges to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act that President George W. Bush signed into law in 2003 after its approval by the Republican-led U.S. Congress.
The decision marked the first time the nation's high court has upheld a federal law banning a specific abortion procedure since its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 that women have a basic constitutional right to abortion.
In a defeat for abortion rights advocates, the court's conservative majority with two Bush appointees upheld the law adopted after nine years of hearings and debate. The law has never been enforced because of court challenges.
The majority opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy rejected arguments the law must be struck down because it imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion, it is too vague or too broad and fails to provide an exception for abortions to protect the health of a pregnant woman.
The court's four most liberal members -- Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Stephen Breyer -- dissented.
...
The upheld law makes it a crime for a doctor to perform an abortion when the "entire fetal head" or "any part of the fetal trunk past the navel" is outside the woman's uterus.
The procedure, which often occurs in the second trimester of pregnancy, is known medically as intact dilation and extraction.
UPDATE 2-US top court upholds law banning some abortions | News | Bonds News | Reuters
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Commentary: The description of the procedure (see above) seems to be fairly narrowly defined. It is notably
not a ban on abortions past a certain period of pregnancy, but a ban a (particularly brutal and disturbing) method of abortion. I, personally, support the decision.