Copyright 2000 The Atlanta Constitution
The Atlanta
Journal and Constitution
January 15, 2000, Saturday, Home Edition
SECTION: News; Pg. 1A
LENGTH: 305 words
HEADLINE:
High court takes on hot issues;
Late-term abortion procedure, ouster of gay
Scout leader will be considered this term.
BYLINE:
Ernie Freda, Staff
SOURCE: AJC
BODY:
The Supreme Court agreed Friday to take on
two hot-button, emotional issues: whether states can ban "partial birth"
abortions and whether the Boy Scouts can exclude homosexuals.
A
Nebraska law that made it a crime for doctors to perform the late-term abortion
procedure was struck down by a federal appeals court as unconstitutional.
Similar laws have been enacted by 30 states, but most, including Georgia's, have
been blocked or weakened by lawsuits.
Lower courts in two-thirds of
those states ruled that the laws were written so vaguely that all forms of
abortion could be outlawed.
A month after the Nebraska law was
invalidated, along with laws in Iowa and Arkansas, another federal appeals court
upheld nearly identical abortion laws in Illinois and Wisconsin.
Women
were granted a constitutional right to abor- tion through the Supreme Court's
landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. That basic right was reaffirmed in 1992,
the high court's last major abortion ruling.
Congress twice has passed
bills banning the procedure, which doctors call dilatation and extraction, but
President Clinton vetoed them, saying the laws failed to adequately protect a
woman's health.
In the Boy Scouts case, the justices will decide whether
the organization had a constitutional right to oust a young troop leader after
learning he was homosexual.
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled last
summer that the Scouts had violated a state public accommodations discrimination
law.
But the organization contends the law violated its First Amendment
rights of free speech and free association.
Scouts lawyer George
Davidson declared that homosexuality is not moral, and so an openly gay person
would not be a proper role model.
The court is expected to hear
arguments in both cases in April and issue decisions by July.
LOAD-DATE: January 15, 2000 
