Update on Partial-Birth Abortion Brief
Last night and this morning, I have been working on the drafts of our briefs in the partial-birth abortion case. This case is currently at the Supreme Court. In 2003, President Bush signed legislation prohibiting the partial-birth abortion procedure. Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and others immediately challenged this statute in court. Not surprisingly, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit held that the partial-birth abortion ban was unconstitutional based on the Supreme Courts decision in the Stenberg case six years ago. Stenberg involved a challenge to the Nebraskas partial-birth abortion ban statute.
The key difference now is that weve had a significant change on the Supreme Court of the United States. When the case was first heard in 2000, Justice OConnor proved to be the swing vote. She held that the statute was unconstitutional because it did not contain a health-of-the- mother exception. She held this despite the fact that Congress found that the procedure was never necessary to protect the health or life of the mother and that there were other procedures available if an emergency were to arise. With the appointment of Justice Alito to the Supreme Court of the United States, we have a new opportunity in this case.
When the case was decided in 2000, the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy held that the ban in Nebraska was, in fact, constitutional. However, as I said, Justice OConnor disagreed and the decision was 5-4 against our position. We made a strong showing in our briefs that this statute is constitutional. We are representing over 75 members of the United States House and Senate, as well as over 330,000 of our own ACLJ members who became part of our Committee to Protect the Ban on Partial-Birth Abortion. We expect to file the brief on Friday.
I encourage you to listen to Jay Sekulow Live! to get frequent updates on this and other critical cases that the ACLJ is handling.