The Horatio R. Storer
Foundation, an educational
subsidiary of the National
Right to Life Committee,
today filed an amicus curiae
brief in the United States
Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit arguing in
favor of the federal
"Partial-Birth Abortion Ban
of 2003." The ban had been
struck down by a San
Francisco federal district
court, and the U.S.
Department of Justice then
appealed.
The Foundation's brief
argues that the federal
partial-birth abortion ban
differs from the Nebraska
ban that the U.S. Supreme
Court held unconstitutional
in 2000. The federal ban
only applies when, "in the
case of a head-first
presentation, the entire
fetal head is outside the
body of the mother, or, in
the case of breech
presentation, any part of
the fetal trunk past the
navel is outside the body of
the mother." The Nebraska
partial-birth abortion ban
imposed no requirement that
the child to be abortion
must have emerged from the
mother's body before the law
could be violated.
According to James Bopp,
Jr., counsel for the
Foundation, "This
distinction makes all the
difference. Children who
are more than halfway
outside their mothers'
bodies are more persons and
citizens than they are
fetuses to be disposed of in
any way the abortion doctor
chooses – even through the
painful and gruesome method
of partial-birth abortion."
In "findings" preamble to
the federal ban, Congress
explicitly claimed
"heightened" and
"compelling" interests in
protecting the partially
born child, preventing pain
caused to the child by the
partial-birth abortion
method, and drawing a
"bright line" between
abortion and infanticide,
said Bopp.
The brief also argues that
the district court erred by
holding that the federal ban
prohibits treatment for
miscarriages, abortion by
dismemberment of the fetus
within the mother's body, or
abortion by induction of
labor before the child can
survive after birth. "The
plain language of the law
forbids only delivering
children with the express
purpose of overtly killing
children who dangling
outside the bodies of their
mothers," said Bopp. "This
law has nothing to do with
other abortion methods."
A decision in the case,
Planned Parenthood
Federation of America, et
al. v. Ashcroft, No.
04-16621, is expected
sometime in 2005. Similar
challenges to the federal
ban are also now before
U.S. Courts of Appeals in
New York City and St. Louis.