Copyright 2000 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
April 4, 2000, Tuesday, FIVE STAR LIFT
EDITION
SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A4
LENGTH: 497 words
HEADLINE:
SUPREME COURT REJECTS JUSTICE DEPT. ROLE IN NEBRASKA ABORTION CASE
BYLINE: From News Services
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
The Justice Department will have no voice when the Supreme Court
later this month takes up a Nebraska case that could determine the fate of a
surgical procedure opponents call "partial-birth abortion."
The court,
in a brief order Monday, rejected Solicitor General Seth Waxman's request that a
government lawyer be allowed to take part when the case is argued April 25.
Waxman, the government's top-ranking courtroom lawyer, filed a
friend-of-the-court brief last week that supports a Nebraska doctor's challenge
of his state's restrictive law. The brief says the state law violates some
women's constitutional right to end their pregnancies. President Bill Clinton
twice has vetoed a federal ban enacted by Congress, which served as a model for
similar state laws.
The court's refusal was an unusual setback. Such
requests by the Justice Department are granted far more often than they are
rejected.
The Supreme Court has not issued a major abortion ruling since
1992, when it reaffirmed the core holding of its 1973 decision Roe vs. Wade.
That landmark ruling said women have a constitutional right to abortion.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis struck down the Nebraska
law, along with similar laws in Iowa and Arkansas. But the 7th Circuit Cou rt of
Appeals in Chicago upheld nearly identical laws in Illinois and Wisconsin.
The administration's brief said the Nebraska law challenged by Leroy
Carhart, a doctor in Bellevue, Neb., is written so broadly that it could be
enforced against more than one abortion procedure and is too vague to let
doctors know just what abortion techniques are outlawed.
Even if the law
is limited to a single procedure, the brief said, it unduly burdens a woman's
right to abortion because "it fails to provide an exception to preserve the
pregnant woman's health."
The surgical procedure at issue involves
partly extracting a fetus, legs first, through the birth canal, cutting the
skull and draining its contents. Partial-birth abortion is not a medical term.
Doctors call the method dilation and extraction.
Although the Nebraska
law and legal dispute focuses on the dilation and extraction procedure, far more
may be at stake. Abortion-rights advocates say the court's decision could
broadly safeguard or dramatically erode abortion rights, depending on what state
legislatures can consider when regulating abortions.
In other
actions Monday, the court:
* Agreed to decide in a case from New York
City whether Congress can bar groups funded by Legal Services
Corp. from filing lawsuits that, in addition to seeking benefits, seek
to change welfare laws.
* Refused to hear a challenge to a Tennessee
law, similar to those in all 50 states, that is aimed at helping government
officials and the public keep track of anyone ever convicted of a sex crime. The
justices let stand a ruling that says the law does not invade anyone's privacy
or violate any other constitutionally protected rights.
LOAD-DATE: April 4, 2000 
