Second Partial-Birth Abortion Case at Supreme Court

Today we filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court of the United States in a California case, Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood (No. 05-1382), asking the high court to reject arguments that partial-birth abortion is medically safer than childbirth.  We also have filed an amicus brief with the high court in the Nebraska case in support of the constitutionality of the national ban on partial-birth abortion.

It is very troubling that part of the legal argument in this case centers on the false assertion that abortion is actually safer than childbirth.  That assertion is not only false but absurd, and were confident the high court will reach that determination.  The fact is that partial-birth abortion not only takes the life of the child through a barbaric procedure, but represents a significant health risk to the mother.  With two cases now before the high court involving the constitutionality of the national ban on partial-birth abortion, we are hopeful the Justices will once and for all put an end to the horrific procedure that can only be described as infanticide.

Our brief addresses the disturbing misconception that abortion has been proven to be safer than childbirth, and asserts that the comparison of maternal mortality and abortion mortality statistics is akin to mixing apples and oranges and cannot be compared one-to-one.  Further, the brief asserts the comparison is invalid because the data itself is inaccurate and incomplete.  We also cite numerous published research studies in this country and abroad that strongly indicate[] that abortion, rather than being safer than childbirth, is in fact more dangerous.

Our brief concludes:   In sum, there is ample reason to believe that abortion is detrimental to maternal health, if anything, more likely to lead to death or other adverse consequences than is continuing the pregnancy.  This Court should take with a very large grain of salt any assertion that abortion is healthy for women, much less some sort of panacea.  There is good reason to believe precisely the contrary.

In the California case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court ruling declaring the national ban on partial-birth abortion unconstitutional.  In addition, the high court is considering a case out of Nebraska where lower courts rejected the constitutionality of the ban as well.  In the Nebraska case, we filed an amicus brief with the high court representing nearly 80 members of Congress and more than 320,000 Americans asking the high court to uphold the ban.

The Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral arguments in both cases next term.