Appeals court upholds decision striking down abortion ban

[Thom Little]

A federal appeals panel on Monday upheld a decision striking down a Missouri ban on certain late-term abortions that lower courts had concluded lacked an exception for the health of pregnant women.

The 1999 law sought to ban what critics call "partial-birth abortion," but it was put on hold by a federal judge one day after the Legislature enacted it by overriding a gubernatorial veto.

After years of legal battles in both state and federal courts, U.S. District Judge Scott O. Wright declared the law unconstitutional in July 2004, citing the lack of a health exception. The three-judge federal appeals panel upheld that decision Monday.

Wright and the appeals panel both cited a 2000 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down Nebraska's "partial-birth abortion" ban for failing to have a health exception and for being written so broadly as to effectively prohibit other types of late-term abortions.


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MO_ABORTION_BAN_MOOL-?SITE=VARIT&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-11-28-12-42-20

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. good

I'm sorry, but I think that the anti-choice people are really anti-women, when they draft legislation that could mean a woman would die just so a fetus could go to term. The ironic thing is that often if this happens, the baby dies very soon afterward.

[Der Blaue Engel]

3. The anti-choice people are definitely anti-women

Always have been, no matter what blather they pretend to offer up as their rationale.

It is fundamentally a question of a woman's right to her own body. Period. (No pun intended.)

[tx_dem41]

2. When are the fundies going to figure out that getting rid of the

exception of the "life of the mother" is not possible to get through the judicial system? I hope they don't figure it out, but it amazes me that they keep trying it.

[MountainLaurel]

4. Never

That would been accepting facts instead of the bile they're fed on a weekly basis, and because of the focus on blindly following authority, that ain't gonna happen.

[HockeyMom]

5. As somebody who had an ectopic pregnancy

and had to wait 24 hours in a Catholic Hospital, in which time my tube burst, I know all about the so called exception for "life of the mother." Screw waiting periods, notifications, bla, bla, bla. Have they ever heard of the term "TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE?"

[tx_dem41]

6. We agree on that.

My wife had an ectopic pregnancy. I understand where you are coming from.