SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge Tuesday declared the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional, saying the measure infringes on a woman's right to choose.
The ruling applies to the nation's 900 or so Planned Parenthood (news - web sites) clinics and their doctors, who perform roughly half of all abortions in the United States.
U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton's ruling came in one of three lawsuits challenging the legislation President Bush (news - web sites) signed last year.
"The act poses an undue burden on a woman's right to choose an abortion," she wrote.
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