FORUM: Stakes are high as U.S. Supreme Court takes on abortion case

• Published in: New Haven register (New Haven, Conn. : 1961)
• Main Author: Meyer, Jeffrey A
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Haven, Conn New Haven Register 05.03.2006

When Congress enacted the federal ban on partial-birth abortion, it allowed an exception only for the life of the mother and not for the health of the mother. Why? Because Congress concluded that a partial-birth abortion was never necessary to protect the general health of a mother. Six years ago the Supreme Court answered this question in Stenberg v. Carhart, concluding that there must be a health exception if "substantial medical authority supports the proposition that banning a particular abortion procedure could endanger a women's health." This means that a challenger to a law restricting abortion may win simply with testimony from some medical experts - but not necessarily a majority of experts or the most qualified experts - to suggest that the health of the mother is placed at risk. Merely the fact of a significant dispute among experts is enough, and the law must fall. Despite the fact that several lower courts have ruled against the partial-birth ban, the government may fare better before the Supreme Court. That is be cause Stenberg was decided by only one vote, and three of the dissenting justices in Stenberg still remain on the court ([Anthony M. Kennedy], Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas). The court's two newest additions, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and [Samuel A. Alito Jr.], are likely to side with the three dissenters and conclude that more than just a dispute among medical experts is needed to strike down the federal law.