Copyright 2000 The Omaha World-Herald Company
Omaha
World-Herald
April 26, 2000, Wednesday SUNRISE EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1;
LENGTH: 1084 words
HEADLINE:
Debate Continues Outside Court What's Next Elsewhere More Inside
BYLINE: JAKE THOMPSON
SOURCE:
WORLD-HERALD BUREAU
DATELINE: Washington
BODY:
Once again, the legal
wrangling over abortion inside the U.S. Supreme Court chamber gave way to the
emotionally charged political debate outside. And once again, the
larger meaning of a narrow law - this time a Nebraska ban on so-called
"partial-birth" abortions - has ignited abortion-rights
supporters and abortion opponents. Abortion-rights backers decry the
Nebraska law, saying it chips away at the right to an abortion guaranteed to
women in the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade case, while supporters of the law say it
bars one disturbing medical procedure in which doctors partly deliver a fetus
before killing it. Nebraska Attorney General Don Stenberg, after
arguing the case Tuesday morning before the Supreme Court, stood amid a sea of
umbrellas on the court's rain-pelted steps and called the practice a "horrific
procedure ... that has no place in a civilized society." Calling the
procedure barbaric, Stenberg said it is never needed to save the life or protect
the health of the mother. The goal of the Nebraska law was to
prohibit "in essence killing a little child in the process of being born," he
said. But the first question from a band of reporters was whether
Stenberg was using the case to further his own bid for the U.S.
Senate. No, Stenberg said, the Nebraska Legislature passed its ban
three years ago. The challenge of the ban was brought by Dr. LeRoy Carhart, a
Nebraska abortion provider, Stenberg said, and the Supreme Court decides which
cases it will hear. He said he was at the Supreme Court only to
"represent the people of Nebraska, the values of Nebraska." Moments
later and a block away, Carhart offered his own view at his own press
conference. The law would ban not just one rarely used abortion
procedure, Carhart said. Instead, he said, it is a deceptive attempt to bar all
abortions. "It makes it so I cannot practice abortions in the state
of Nebraska," said Carhart, flanked by attorneys from the Center for
Reproductive Law and Policy, Simon Heller and Janet Benshoof. The New York
City-based legal advocacy group is pursuing the case on Carhart's
behalf. "This ban also violates every essence of what it is to be an
American," Carhart said. "In this country, in America, the government cannot
intervene in the most personal and private decisions of families for the purpose
of pursuing an extremist political agenda." The procedure known
medically as dilation and extraction, or D&X, evolved over time and is safer
than others because women tend to bleed less and recover more quickly, Carhart
said. The practice also may, at times, be the only way to keep a woman alive, he
said. "And I don't want to be obstructed from saving a patient's
life, even if that's one patient a year," he said. Politicians hold
differing opinions on the Nebraska ban, although President Clinton has twice
vetoed similar bans approved by Congress. Clinton has urged the Supreme Court to
reject the Nebraska law, and the issue is likely to play in this year's
presidential contest. Vice President Gore, the presumed Democratic
nominee, opposes banning the D&X procedure, while his likely GOP rival,
Texas Gov. George W. Bush, favors the ban. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.,
who opposes all abortions, said the arguments before the Supreme Court involve
larger questions than simply whether one medical procedure should remain
legal. "This is about a civilized society standing against a heinous
procedure that is used to kill a mostly born child, a procedure that, as even
some advocates of abortion rights have conceded, comes dangerously close to
murder," Hagel said. But Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., who has voted in
the Senate against the "partial-birth" abortion ban, noted that the 8th Circuit
Court of Appeals upheld a Nebraska district court decision that the state law
was unconstitutional. The grounds were that the law placed an undue burden on
women seeking abortions. Kerrey said the law would affect any
Nebraska doctor who performs either the common dilation and evacuation
abortions, or D&E, or the more rare D&X abortions. The first procedure
is performed within the woman's uterus, while the second involves removing as
much of the fetus as possible from the uterus, then draining the skull to allow
the rest to pass. "We must not deny women their ability to freely
undergo an abortion, or the access to physician care necessary to ensure their
safety," Kerrey said recently. On an overcast, rainy day, opinions
were just as polarized on the patio outside the Supreme
Court. Abortion-rights supporters carried "Keep Abortion Safe and
Legal" placards and wove their way around abortion opponents who were carrying
signs saying "Abortion Kills." One also carried a large picture of Carhart,
accusing him of being a killer. Some anti-abortion protesters stood
by gruesome color pictures of alleged abortions. Police arrested several of them
for refusing to remove the posters, while their supporters sang, "America the
Beautiful." Heller, who argued Carhart's case before the Supreme
Court, said the Nebraska law was part of a nationwide campaign to eliminate
abortion altogether. Kathy Rogers, president of the National
Organization for Women's legal fund, said: "This case puts at risk women's
health, women's liberty and women's equality. This case is about politicians
making medical decisions for women and banning a common procedure used
throughout pregnancy." Nebraska Lt. Gov. Dave Maurstad, who traveled
to Washington for the oral arguments, brushed off Heller's and Rogers' arguments
about the law's impact. As a state senator, Maurstad was a principal
author of the law. The Legislature crafted a definition for one particular
procedure it wanted outlawed, Maurstad said. "Although the definition
is very clear, the intent is clear, too - to ban this procedure," Maurstad said.
"The fact is our citizens believe this procedure does border on infanticide,
does diminish the quality of life we all hope to preserve."WHAT'S NEXTThe
Supreme Court decision on Stenberg vs. Carhart is expected by late
June.ELSEWHEREA month after Nebraska, Iowa and Arkansas abortion laws were
struck down at the appeals level, another federal appeals court upheld nearly
identical abortion laws in Illinois and Wisconsin.MORE INSIDENebraskans on both
sides of the abortion case take to the airwaves and public podiums. Page
2.Related links and text of Carhart vs. Stenberg atomaha.com
GRAPHIC: Mugs/2 Heller Benshoof
LOAD-DATE: April 26, 2000 
