Posted on April 23, 2007
The Supreme Court decided Wednesday to uphold the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act passed by Congress in 2003. This is the first time justices have banned a specific abortion procedure, according to the Washington Post.
Senior Jessica Killeen, a member of the college democrats, disapproves of the courts decision.
“I am very disappointed in the Supreme Court’s recent decision,” she said. “I don’t believe it is the place of the Supreme Court or the government to regulate the choices a woman makes with her physician.”
While some students are upset by this decision, others embrace it. Sophomore history major Laura Pruner, a member of college republicans, agreed with the ruling.
“I think the Supreme Court made an excellent decision when they concluded that partial abortion was to be prohibited,” she said. “This is a major step in the pro-life movement and they should be proud.”
The court’s 5 to 4 decision is the first time since the case of Roe v. Wade in 1973 that Justices approved an abortion restriction that did not contain an exception for the health of the woman, according to the Washington Post. This is one of the reasons Killeen is disturbed by the court’s decision.
“The reason this ban is so troubling is that it doesn’t take into account protecting the health of the woman,” she said.
The decision does provide an exception if the life of the mother is in danger.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy supports the ban because it does not restrict other abortion procedures that are available, according to the Washington Post.
As many as 90 percent of abortions are performed within the first three months of pregnancy, reported the Washington Post, in which embryonic tissue is removed with a vacuum. This procedure is not affected by the ban.
The law restricts the abortion method “intact dilation and extraction,” or “partial-birth abortion,” that can be used in the second or third trimesters of pregnancy.
For Pruner, however, this is not enough.
“Life starts at conception,” she said. “It is as simple as that. No matter how many people try to put their spin on it, killing an innocent baby will never be justified in my mind.”
President Bush’s two appointees, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. sided with Kennedy and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the dissenter amidst the group.
According to the Washington Post, Ginsburg told the courtroom that the majority opinion “cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chisel away at a right declared again and again by this court – and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives.”
