c. 2006 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ The controversial issue of abortion will again be the center of attention when the Supreme Court hears arguments on Nov. 8 in two cases about the constitutionality of a ban on a late-term abortion procedure.

A bill passed in 2003, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, has since been declared unconstitutional by several federal courts. While abortion opponents argue the ban should be permitted, abortion rights advocates say it should not stand because it does not contain an exception related to the health of the mother.

The battle over late-term abortion represents the latest and sometimes most emotional skirmish in the 33-year war over abortion. Conservatives want to place limits around a procedure President Bush has called “abhorrent,” while liberals see any restrictions as a threat to abortion rights that were outlined in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Jan LaRue, chief counsel of the Washington-based Concerned Women for America, said congressional testimony demonstrated that the health exception was not needed.

“This is never the only or best procedure for a late-term abortion,” said LaRue, whose organization submitted a joint friend-of-the-court brief with the National Association of Evangelicals that called the procedure “a barbarism that may and should be prohibited.”

The Rev. Carlton Veazey, president of the Washington-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, argues that a health exception is necessary and thus, the ban, without it should be unconstitutional.

“This is an issue that doctors have to decide,” he said. “How can somebody say there shouldn’t be a health exception until they’re in a position to know that particular woman and that particular circumstance?”

The rarely used procedure in question, medically known as intact dilation and extraction, has been labeled “partial-birth abortion” by critics. A fetus is partially extracted through the birth canal and its skull is collapsed by suctioning out the brain.

In their joint brief filed with the Supreme Court, the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family argue that recognizing a woman’s right to such a procedure “would promote infanticide.”

NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, in its brief, cautions that the law in question “will have a chilling effect on physicians that deters at least some of them from performing legal abortions.”

When the high court considered the issue in 2000, it struck down a Nebraska law banning the procedure because it lacked the health exception. Congress attempted to address the court’s concerns by creating a more precise definition of the procedure with the new law, but did not include the health exception because lawmakers said it was not necessary.

The two cases, Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, will be heard in back-to-back sessions. The first case is being appealed from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that the medical community has not reached a consensus on the necessity for the banned procedure. The second was considered by the 9th Circuit, which not only ruled on the lack of a health exception but also said the law was “impermissibly vague” and places an “undue burden on women seeking abortions.”

In the plethora of friend-of-the-court briefs filed with the Supreme Court, interest groups cite stories that reflect the passion that often surfaces when the controversial procedure is discussed.

For example, the Concerned Women for America brief, refers to a witness’ description of “the baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping” just before the procedure began. An opposing brief from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice cited the testimony of a “practicing Catholic” woman who had an abortion in her seventh month of pregnancy after she learned that her fetus had a fatal condition and was told the procedure could prevent her from having a hysterectomy.

Laura Chasin, the founder of the Watertown, Mass.-based Public Conversations Project, hopes the case _ and however it is decided _ will not further polarize the country. Organizers of the project, which has fostered dialogues between opponents and supporters of abortion rights and other issues, find that when people share their personal stories, stereotypes are softened.

“The saddest thing of all is that this issue has taken people who probably are among the most caring, most thoughtful, most principled people in this whole country and turned them all against each other,” she said.

KRE/JL END BANKS

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