Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Bush-Endorsed Abortion Procedures Ban
Women's Reproductive Rights Hang in the Balance

Statement of NOW President Kim Gandy

November 7, 2006

Just one day after millions of women and men cast their votes to determine the direction of this country, nine Supreme Court justices will consider the constitutionality of the United States' first abortion procedures ban—a ban enacted by the Bush administration and its friends in Congress.

On Wednesday, Nov. 8, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood. Both cases address the deceptively-named "partial birth abortion" ban that George W. Bush signed into law on Nov. 5, 2003, while surrounded by a group of grinning legislators—not one of them a woman.

A Nebraska law identical in effect to the federal ban was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2000 because it didn't protect women's health. Soon we will learn whether the court's two newest members—Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito—are as devoted to precedent as they say they are, or whether their visceral opposition to abortion will lead them to overturn a clear precedent after only six years.

One of the cases, Gonzales v. Carhart, concerns the same doctor, the same state, and the same issues as did Stenberg v. Carhart in 2000, when Dr. Leroy Carhart challenged a Nebraska law that banned certain vaguely-defined abortion procedures without including any exception for a woman whose health is at risk.

The Court's narrow 5-4 opinion in that 2000 case found the law unconstitutional. The outcome in the cases being argued this week could be different without retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the bench. O'Connor cast the deciding vote in the Nebraska case and was replaced earlier this year by abortion opponent Alito.

The precedent set by Stenberg in 2000 was the reason three federal appeals courts declared the federal ban unconstitutional as well. But the Bush administration has pressed on with appeals to the Supreme Court by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Not only will we find out whether our new justices are committed to "stare decisis" and settled law—as Roberts and Alito assured senators they were—but we will also see whether their opposition to abortion means they will force physicians to violate their Hippocratic oath, putting the desire of conservatives in Congress to control women's bodies above a doctor's medical duty to put their patients' health first.

This isn't the first time Congress has tried to practice medicine without a license, but if this ban is upheld, it will be the first time the Supreme Court has allowed them to do so. The court's line of questioning on Nov. 8, and its eventual ruling on the federal abortion procedures ban, could signal the fate of women's reproductive rights in the United States.

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For Immediate Release
Contact: Lisa Bennett, 202-628-8669, ext. 123; cell 301-537-7429

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