U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Ban on Abortion Methods

<There are two primary issues on which Haven/Bastion clearly separates from the liberal agenda; Abortion and Gun Control. While it is sad that we must depart from the ACLU, and therefore cannot whole-heartedly support it, there are clear issues of a most immediate and critical nature which require it in these instances. We stidently disagree with the very principles upon which these issues are based. What follows is an annotated showing of which precise exceptions we make with that view/agenda and why.>

Ruling Undermines Women’s Health and Equality

<This statement is purely biased. The issue is NOT only about the welfare of the mother but the welfare of the child as well. Equality would mean that both their rights are "paramount" and that the woman is held to the same standards of reasonableness in causing the death of another individual as any other person.>

May 2007
On April 18, 2007, the United States Supreme Court dealt a devastating blow to women’s health, reproductive rights, and equality. In a 5-4 decision that puts politics before women’s health, the Court upheld the first-ever federal ban on abortion methods – called by its sponsors the “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.”

<Again, completely and obviously biased. It could equally be seen as FOR the child's health, rights, and equality. This is not a matter of politics but of reasonable balance of rights between two people. The doctors are not qualified to make that kind of moral distinction, it can only be governed by community standards of national law. However unfortunate it is for the government to make moral distinctions due to the use of politics rather than reason in our current system, that is precisely what it exists to do. If the standard of equality were present in the core values of the abortion issue, much of this would be moot.>

In upholding the ban, the Court undermined a core principle of Roe v. Wade – that women’s health must remain paramount. In the three decades since Roe, the Court has always demanded that abortion restrictions include protections for women’s health. Yet with its decision in Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America (a single decision referred to below as Carhart II), the Court upheld the federal ban despite the fact that it fails to contain a health exception.

<A woman's health is NOT paramount, nor should it be. There is NOT one person's rights at stake here, there are two. As stated in the core values of Haven/Bastion, there are only two ways we have to determine whether someone is a person or not; a soul, or a working brain. One is not measurable, the other is, and it begins around the end of the first tri-mester. After that, the child has every bit as much potential, as many rights, etc, as the mother and to treat it any other way is contrary to the most basic principles of human rights. Each case must be based on the value of those rights weighed against each other. Certainly that would include the health of the woman, and certainly it would include the health of the child.>

Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy evoked antiquated notions of women’s place in society and called into question their decision-making ability. Furthermore, the Court held that in the face of “medical uncertainty” lawmakers could overrule a doctor’s medical judgment. In other words, the Court sanctioned placing medical decisions in the hands of politicians, not doctors. Notwithstanding the Court’s claim that it merely followed precedent, the Court’s ruling in Carhart II stands in stark contrast to one it made only seven years prior in a nearly identical case, Stenberg v. Carhart (Carhart I).

<This is nonsensical. A woman's place in society is NOT the issue. Their decision-making ability is. In order to terminate the life of another person, you MUST have your decision-making ability questioned. Furthermore, anyone in that kind of emotionally deep situation can be presumed not to have an unbiased or "correct" decision-making ability. This issue is one of life & death. The doctor can certainly create a triage decision which is appropriate but it can certainly not automatically go to one side or the other of humans with equal rights. If there is a clear distinction as to why one should be more important than the other it has never been enumerated, it has never been written into the rule of law. Law of death is obviously and properly one of the most scrutinized and furthest examined in every other instance, why is it so fuzzy here?>

Additionally, and for the first time, the Court held that the “State’s interest in promoting respect for human life at all stages in the pregnancy” could outweigh the woman’s interest in protecting her own health. Again, this is a radical departure from more than 30 years of precedent holding unequivocally that women’s health interests outweigh any other State interests regardless of the stage of pregnancy. Here the Court’s language sets a dangerous precedent allowing politicians to endanger women’s health.

<Of course that interest "could" outweigh her right to protect her own health. The problem is that one side says "all stages" which is rediculous since the fetus is at some point NOT a person, and the other side says her right is "paramount" when at some point the fetus clearly IS a person. The precedent was wrong, and so any departure from it can only be right, however incomplete or badly phrased. It is a state interest to protect life. It is for this reason that they are involved in this issue at all.>

In an impassioned dissent, Justice Ginsburg attacked the majority for placing women’s health in danger and for undermining women’s struggle for equality. She wrote, women’s “ability to realize their full potential . . . is intimately connected to ‘their ability to control their reproductive lives.’” And she concluded that “the Act, and the Court’s defense of it, cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by the Court – and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives.”
The ACLU, acting on behalf of the National Abortion Federation and several individual physicians, brought one of three legal challenges to the federal ban. In each of those cases, the lower courts had struck down the ban, relying on clear precedent – now swept away by the Court’s decision in Carhart II – that prohibited the government from endangering women’s health when it regulates abortion. Below is a summary of the three cases.THE LEGAL CHALLENGES TO THE FEDERAL BAN National Abortion Federation v. Gonzales: The National Abortion Federation and seven individual physicians, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, the ACLU of Illinois, and the New York Civil Liberties Union, filed a legal challenge to the federal ban in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. That court struck down the ban "because it does not provide for an exception to protect the health of the mother." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed, and then placed the case on hold once the Supreme Court agreed to hear the government’s appeal in Gonzales v. Carhart (see below). Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the ban, the Second Circuit lifted the injunction in this case. Gonzales v. Carhart: Dr. LeRoy Carhart and three other physicians, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, filed a legal challenge to the federal ban in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska. That court struck down the law, in part, because it fails to include an exception to protect women’s health. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. The Department of Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review this lower court ruling and, on November 8, 2006, the Court heard argument in the case, along with Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood (see below). The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban on April 18, 2007, reversing the lower court rulings in both cases.

<How can it be valid to protect the healfh of one person and not of another? The entire issue ignores the health of the child Utterly! Yes, the woman's health is important. NO, it is not paramount.>

Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America: Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood of Golden Gate filed a legal challenge to the federal ban in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. That court struck down the ban, in part, because of the “omission of a health exception.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. The Department of Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review this lower court ruling and, on November 8, 2006, the Court heard argument in the case, along with Gonzales v. Carhart (see above). The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban on April 18, 2007, reversing the lower court rulings in both cases.

<At the end of the first trimester, the human brain begins working. At this point it is a viable entity, no more or less parasitic than after birth, only in a different fashion. The issue could be looked at in a different light, that the mother has had her time on Earth and it's time for her to make way for another. It can be looked at (in most cases) that she actively participated in the decision to grow a human life and is therefore to be held responsible for ALL the potential risks associated (she certainly is willing to accept the rewards.) Until the issue is about these issues rather than all the subordinate ones that it currently is, it will never be clear, never fair, never just, never right.>