Copyright 1999 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
Chicago
Sun-Times
October 27, 1999, WEDNESDAY, Late
Sports Final Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 535 words
HEADLINE:
U.S. court keeps ban on late abortions
BYLINE: BY CAM SIMPSON
BODY:
By a one-vote margin, a federal appeals court in Chicago Tuesday reinstated
laws making it a crime for doctors to perform a rare type of late-term
abortion in Illinois and Wisconsin.
But the unusual decision
drew strong criticism from four dissenting judges.
The 5-4 decision by
nine active judges on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a lower
court judge in Chicago who last year struck down the Illinois
ban on the day it was scheduled to take effect. It also
reverses an order barring enforcement of the Wisconsin law previously issued by
a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit. Those on both sides predicted the
decision makes it likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will have to weigh the
issue.
The National Right to Life Committee Inc., which supports the
bans, said the decision conflicts with a federal appeals ruling issued in
another jurisdiction, increasing the likelihood of Supreme Court action.
Ed Yonka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of
Illinois, which successfully argued against the Illinois ban in the lower court
case, said ACLU attorneys would immediately ask the 7th Circuit to stay its
ruling. He also predicted the ACLU would ask the Supreme Court to stay the
ruling.
President Reagan appointed all five of the judges who voted in
favor of the bans. Only one active Reagan appointee, Chief Judge Richard A.
Posner, dissented. The other three dissenters include the court's only two women
judges, one appointed by President Bush and one appointed by President Clinton,
and another Clinton appointee.
Such abortions, referred to in the
medical community as "intact dilation and extractions," are rare. They are
described as late-term abortions in which partial delivery is needed.
The five Reagan appointees voting in favor of the bans said both states'
laws "can be applied in a constitutional manner," although they acknowledged
that the laws may have been written too broadly.
Because of that, they
ordered lower court judges in Chicago and Wisconsin to issue "precautionary
injunctions" that allow the bans to be enforced only after the state
legislatures, state courts or state agencies have made the bans specific enough
to cover only the intended late-term procedures.
The four judges in the
minority said the unusual "precautionary injunctions" provided a "seductive
allure for a court faced with a hot issue." But they said the remedy would
create a constitutional nightmare of enforcement: It would make state officials
subject to federal contempt sanctions for administering laws "that these (state)
officials, not federal judges, are charged with administering."
It is a
remedy that none of the parties in either case requested or contemplated, said
the dissenting opinion, which was written by Posner. "We are taking a leap into
the unknown," Posner wrote.
The dissenters also said the core laws at
issue "unlawfully burden the right of abortion."
Last week, the U.S.
Senate voted 63-34 to ban late-term abortions. While the measure passed, it fell
narrowly short of the two-thirds majority that would be required to override a
promised veto by President Clinton. The president vetoed similar bills in 1996
and 1997.
LOAD-DATE: October 28, 1999
