Partial-birth Abortion

With the Supreme Court term beginning this past Monday, Oct. 2, it will quickly face cases on the federal law banning a procedure known as partial-birth abortion that are drawing attention from the religious community.

Court observers are eyeing two abortion cases, in which the 9^th and 8^th U.S. circuit Courts of Appeals each said the 2003 federal law banning partial-birth abortion was unconstitutional, to see if recent changes in the Supreme Court’s makeup will affect the outcome of abortion-related decisions.

In Gonzales v. Carhart, the 8^th Circuit sided with Dr. Leroy Carhart, a Nebraska abortion doctor who successfully sued to overturn that state’s partial-birth abortion ban. In 2000 the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the state law was unconstitutional because it lacked a provision allowing an exception in cases where the pregnant woman’s health is at risk.

Congress sought to reverse the effect of that ruling by passing a federal law banning the procedure nationwide. The bill did not include a health exception, because, the bill’s proponents argued, sufficient evidence had been heard that this particular procedure is never medically necessary.

The banned procedure involved partially delivering a live fetus and then puncturing the brain stem to kill the baby before completing the delivery. Supporters of keeping the procedure legal argue that it is usually used late in pregnancy when other abortion methods are more dangerous to the woman.

In Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, the 9^th Circuit ruled on behalf of a San Francisco-based Planned Parenthood affiliate and its national organization that the federal law is unconstitutional because it lacks a health exception, imposes a burden on a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion and is constitutionally vague.

The legal question before the Supreme Court when it hears both cases November 8^th is whether the law is invalid because it lacks a health exception or otherwise is unconstitutional.

I believe the abortion issue is always very difficult to discuss. The main problem seems to stem from the question - When does a human being become a human being? When does life begin? Is abortion murder?

In conclusion, the basic protection which society must provide its citizens is the protection of the right to be. Our Declaration of Independence express as self-evident the truths "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and that governments are instituted to secure these rights. Whether one believes in a creator or not, the responsibility of government in the matter of human life is clear. When abortion was legalized in our country, government, in effect, said that the unalienable right to life does not apply to certain beings that are, nonetheless, definitely human beings. This brings us back to the question when does life become life? For all practical purposes it made every unborn child legally vulnerable. In regards to the subject of partial – birth abortion, I believe there is no doubt that human life is being endangered. The child being aborted is a child – no questions asked.