Church in the World

Court upholds partial-birth abortion ban

United States

The US Supreme Court upheld a law banning "partial-birth abortions" last week, a decision that, while having relatively little immediate impact, may substantially reorient the abortion debate in America.

The court ruled that a 2003 law passed by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush forbidding partial-birth abortions - a procedure that requires partly removing an intact foetus and then crushing or cutting its skull, rather than dismembering the baby in the womb - did not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

Doctors use the method only from 12 weeks or so into the pregnancy. Since about 90 per cent of the one million abortions performed in the US each year occur earlier than that, and since other methods are available for late-term abortions, the decision will have relatively little effect on current practice.

Even so, both opponents and supporters of abortion rights found in the decision an indication of the direction in which the Court - with a more conservative orientation following two appointments by President Bush - may head, including the possibility of it revisiting Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that declared that the constitution guaranteed a right to an abortion. Last week's decision marked the first time since that case that the court had banned a specific method of abortion.

All five of the judges on the narrowly divided Court who voted to uphold the ban are Catholics, and many of the nation's Catholic leaders cautiously cheered their ruling. They were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both appointed by President Bush, and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy.

"The Court's decision does not affect the legal status of the great majority of abortions, and does not reverse past decisions claiming to find a right to abortion in the Constitution," said Cardinal Justin Rigali, the chairman of the pro-life committee of the US Bishops' Conference. "However, it provides reasons for renewed hope and renewed effort on the part of pro-life Americans. The Court is taking a clearer and more unobstructed look at the tragic reality of abortion, and speaking about that reality more candidly, than it has in many years".