The decision, expected in late June, is likely to define the state of reproductive rights in the 21st century.

The Nebraska case is not about "late" abortion. Anti-choice supporters of the ban-in an effort to gain political points-perpetrate the deception that the ban restricts "late" or post-viability abortions. It is important to note that nearly 40 states already prohibit such procedures unless the life or health of the woman is at risk.

The Court will not address the issue of "late" abortion at all. Rather, the Supreme Court will determine whether states have the right to restrict abortion during the first half of pregnancy - before fetal viability. That is why this case will determine the future of Roe v. Wade.

One of the first questions from the Court during oral arguments, asked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Nebraska Attorney General Don Stenberg, clarified that point immediately. In the opening moments of Stenberg's testimony, he asserted that the state sought to prohibit an abortion method that "borders on infanticide," which prompted Justice Ginsburg to ask:

JUSTICE GINSBURG: This case concerns only the pre-viable stage, is that not so?

GENERAL STENBERG: Yes.

Later in Stenberg's argument, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor asked about the broad scope of the law. The lower court had found it could prohibit the safest and most common abortion method used in the second trimester of pregnancy, the D&E.

JUSTICE O'CONNOR: Mr. Stenberg, do you take the position that the State of Nebraska could also prohibit the dilation and evacuation procedure for pre-viability abortions?

GENERAL STENBERG: For purposes of this case, the State's position would be that the State could not prohibit the D&E procedure, but also the State has not attempted to prohibit the D&E procedure.

JUSTICE O'CONNOR: I know that's the position you take, but it is difficult to read the statute and be certain that that is so. They're both rather gruesome procedures, but in fact one may be very similar to the other and I'm not certain whether the statute might not prohibit the D&E procedure as well.

GENERAL STENBERG: It's our position, Your Honor, that it does not prohibit the D&E procedure….

Yet, in an article printed in the Chicago Tribune on April 26, 2000, the day following oral arguments in the Court, Stenberg admitted that the state could ban D&E abortions.

"D&E is also a very ghastly procedure," Stenberg said. "It's my view that states could also ban D&E, as long as there were other alternatives available, so long as it wasn't an undue burden."

Simon Heller, Director of Litigation for the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP), represents Dr. LeRoy Carhart, the physician who challenged the Nebraska ban. Heller was pressed by Justice Antonin Scalia about the extent to which states can act to prohibit a method of abortion to protect the fetus. Heller clarified that Nebraska had a statute prohibiting "late" abortion, but redirected attention to the Court's precedents affirming that protection for women's health and lives must be guaranteed for any abortion restriction to be constitutional.

JUSTICE SCALIA: Roe -- Roe -- neither Roe nor Casey are written in the Constitution. They may not have mentioned all of the -- all of the appropriate interests that may be taken into account. Why is it not an appropriate interest that the State is worried about rendering society callous to infanticide?

MR. HELLER: There's certainly a valid State interest in preventing or prohibiting infanticide. And of course, Nebraska, like virtually every other State, already does so through its general homicide statutes, so that Nebraska protects the fetus, even the pre-viable fetus, if it has an independent existence from the woman.

But to say that an abortion procedure that is safest for the woman, a pre-viability abortion procedure is so horrific and so like infanticide, any of the -- any of the abortion procedures -- that could be said about any abortion procedure because every abortion procedure pre-viability involves fetal demise. They all do.

This is an interest, which, if recognized and if it could override the woman's right to -- to health and bodily integrity, would authorize States to prohibit any abortion method and prohibit, indeed, all abortions. So that it's irreconcilable ultimately with the right recognized in Roe and Casey.

At stake in this case is the core principle of Roe v. Wade, which held that the life and health of women must be prevail in laws restricting abortion. If the Supreme Court affirms this principle, which has not been diminished in 27 years of abortion jurisprudence, deceptive and extreme "partial-birth abortion' bans will be struck down. If not, the Court will have opened the door to greater state restrictions on abortion, permitting the states to elevate protection for a pre-viable fetus over the life and health of women. Under this scenario, states would have the right to ban abortion entirely, method by method.

Excerpts from the argument are taken directly from the official transcript issued by the U.S. Supreme Court.