Copyright 2000 Newsday, Inc.
Newsday (New York, NY)
June 29, 2000, Thursday ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: NEWS; Page A07
LENGTH: 1095 words
HEADLINE:
BACKING ABORTION / HIGH COURT RULES AGAINST A BAN IN NEBRASKA CASE
BYLINE: By Gaylord Shaw. WASHINGTON BUREAU
BODY:
Washington-A bitterly divided
Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional yesterday Nebraska's ban on a surgical
procedure opponents call "partial- birth abortion" because it
placed an "undue burden" on women's rights to end their pregnancies.
The
5-4 decision immediately fanned the flames of the many-sided national debate
over abortion. Besides the legal and moral ramifications, the issue suddenly
loomed larger in political races-from the New York Senate race between first
lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rep. Rick Lazio (R-Brightwaters) to the battle
for the presidency between Republican Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Democratic
Vice President Al Gore.
As the candidates took conflicting positions on
the issue, legal experts said the high court's opinion, while voiding only
Nebraska's law, dramatically limited states' power to ban such procedures and
invited litigation challenging similar laws in 29 other states. New York has no
such law. The Nebraska case was in line with a series of abortion-rights rulings
dating back to the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade opinion, which established a
woman's right to control her pregnancy. And, as the justices concluded their
1999-2000 term, they handed another legal victory to supporters of abortion
rights.
By a 6-3 vote, the court upheld a Colorado law clamping
restrictions on anti-abortion demonstrators outside health clinics.
In
the Nebraska case, the majority opinion written by Justice Stephen Breyer said
the statute, which was adopted 99-1 by the state's unicameral legislature, was
fatally flawed because it made no exception for abortions that, in the doctor's
judgment, are necessary to protect the mother's health.
The Nebraska law
made it a crime to perform an abortion by partially delivering the fetus and
then killing it. Authors of the legislation said it was aimed at stopping a
procedure known as dilation and extraction, or D&X, although the law didn't
mention it by name.
During a D&X, the fetus is partially extracted
from the womb by the doctor, who then typically inserts a tube into the skull to
extract its contents.
But critics of the Nebraska law contended it also
prohibited what is known as a D&E, for delivery and evacuation, where the
doctor dilates the cervix and removes the fetus from the uterus, often
dismembering it in the process. The procedure is the most common method of
abortion during the second trimester of pregnancy.
Breyer wrote that
because the state law was so vaguely worded, it would prohibit the D&E
technique. "All those who perform abortion procedures using that method must
fear prosecution, conviction and imprisonment," Breyer said. "The result is an
undue burden upon a woman's right to make an abortion decision."
Joining
Breyer in the majority were Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
David Souter and John Paul Stevens. Dissenting were Chief Justice William
Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy.
The issue was quickly catapulted into the political arena.
Lazio, running against Clinton for the Senate seat being vacated by
retiring Democrat Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, invoked Moynihan's name in
reacting to the court's decision. "Like millions of other pro-choice New
Yorkers, I oppose partial-birth abortions," he said in a statement. Saying that
Moynihan called "this gruesome act" infanticide, Lazio added: "I believe that
people of good conscience on both sides of the abortion issue can unite in
opposition to this procedure."
Lazio's opponent, Clinton, noted the
closeness of the high court's vote on the ruling in saying as a senator she
would vote to confirm only Supreme Court justices who support abortion rights.
"I will vote to support Roe when it counts in choosing nominees to the Supreme
Court. My opponent will not say the same," she said.
At the White House,
President Bill Clinton echoed the same theme during a press conference, calling
abortion rights "very much in the balance." He also pledged to veto any attempt
by the Republican-controlled Congress to push through a federal law restricting
late-term abortions. "A woman's right to choose must include the right to choose
a medical procedure that will not endanger her life or health," Clinton said.
"Today's decision recognizes this principle and marks an important victory for a
woman's freedom of choice."
In the presidential race, Bush has supported
bans like the Nebraska law, while Gore has opposed them.
After
yesterday's ruling, Gore also cited the "razor-thin" margin of the justices'
vote and the fact there could be several vacancies on the court in the next few
years. "The presidential election will also decide the future of the Supreme
Court and that in turn will decide whether or not we keep a woman's right to
choose or see it taken away," he said.
Bush, campaigning in Cleveland,
denounced the decision. "States should have the right to enact reasonable laws
and restrictions, particularly to end the inhumane practice of ending a life
that would otherwise live," he said.
"I hope and expect that we can come
up with a law that meets constitutional muster, and unlike Al Gore, I pledge to
fight for a ban on partial- birth abortion," he said.
In the hushed
courtroom, justices read portions of their majority or dissenting opinions,
often in a tone of voice suggesting the depth of their disagreement.
Thomas, for example, in his dissent said that "the broad rule
articulated by the majority" goes far beyond "this court's already expansive
jurisprudence" on abortion.
"And so today we are told that 30 states are
prohibited from banning one rarely used form of abortion that they believe to
border on infanticide. It is clear that the Constitution does not compel this
result," he said.
And Scalia, in his dissent on the Colorado case
restricting anti-abortion demonstrators, said, "Today's decision is not an
isolated distortion of our traditional constitutional principles but is one of
many aggressively pro-abortion novelties announced by the court in recent
years."
And Kennedy, in his dissent in the Colorado case, said, "If from
this time forward the court repeats its grave errors of analysis, we shall have
no longer the proud tradition of free and open discourse in a public forum ...
Today's decision is an unprecedented departure from this court's teachings
respecting unpopular speech in public fora."
LOAD-DATE: June 29, 2000
