Copyright 2000 The Omaha World-Herald Company
Omaha
World-Herald
January 9, 2000, Sunday SUNRISE EDITION
SECTION: ;NEWS; Pg. 1b
LENGTH: 456 words
HEADLINE:
Abortion Case Set for Review
BYLINE: JUDITH NYGREN
SOURCE: WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
BODY:
The U.S. Supreme Court could decide by
mid-January whether to hear Nebraska's petition to allow a state
ban on a controversial late-term abortion
procedure.
The court is scheduled to review several petitions Friday,
including Nebraska Attorney General Don Stenberg vs. Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who
performs abortions in Bellevue. On Jan. 18, the court will release a list of the
cases it plans to hear. If Stenberg vs. Carhart is among the selected cases,
arguments could be presented to the court as early as April, said Margie Kelly,
a spokeswoman for the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy in Washington, D.C.
The court also could take a number of other actions, including rejecting
the case or postponing action on it.
Court observers have been watching
the Nebraska case because it is the first of several late-term abortion bans to
be considered by the justices. If the case is heard, it could help determine the
degree to which states can, or cannot, restrict a woman's right to end a
pregnancy.
Nebraska's ban of the late-term procedure that opponents call
"partial-birth" abortion was struck down in September by a federal appeals
court. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis ruled that the Nebraska law
"would prohibit in many circumstances the most common method of second-trimester
abortion" along with the controversial third-trimester procedure.
At the
same time, the 8th Circuit struck down similar abortion bans in Iowa and
Arkansas. Iowa, like Nebraska, has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the lower
court's ruling and uphold the ban. But because Iowa filed its petition just
before Christmas, its case hasn't yet been scheduled for review.
Nebraska, in its petition, has asked the court to consider several
issues, including whether:
The state's abortion ban should be narrowly
construed to apply only to the controversial late-term procedure that is known
medically as intact dilation and extraction, or D&X.
"Partially born
human beings" are recognized as people under the 14th Amendment.
Abortion is a legislative, rather than judicial, matter.
The
Center for Reproductive Law and Policy has filed its own brief in the case,
calling Nebraska's positions "meritless." The state, according to the center, is
seeking a review of its ban in the hope that the court, despite recent
decisions, will overturn the Roe vs. Wade ruling that protects a woman's right
to an abortion.
However, the center added, the case may be worthy of
Supreme Court review to establish that Nebraska's ban, and others like it, are
unconstitutional. The center asks that this be done without further arguments or
briefs being presented to the court.
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January 9, 2000 
