President Bush Pushing Abortion Ban

[dutchdemocrat]

President Bush Pushing Abortion Ban
Administration Wants Supreme Court Review of What It Calls 'Partial-Birth' Abortion
By GINA HOLLAND, AP

WASHINGTON (Sept. 26) - The Bush administration is asking the Supreme Court to reinstate a national ban on a type of late-term abortion, a case that could thrust the president's first court picks into an early tie-breaking role on a divisive and emotional issue.

The appeal follows a two-year, cross-country legal fight over the law and highlights the power that Bush's nominees will have. Just a few months ago, there would have been five votes to strike down the law, which bars what critics call partial birth abortion.

The outcome is now uncertain, with moderate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor retiring and her replacement still unnamed.

"This no longer puts the abortion issue in the abstract with the Supreme Court. This is as live a controversy as you can get," Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, said Monday. Abortion was already expected to be a major subject in the next round of confirmation hearings, just as it was with the hearings of John Roberts to be chief justice. The Senate began debating Roberts' nomination on Monday, with confirmation expected later this week.

President Bush had supported the 2003 law outlawing what he termed an "abhorrent practice." President Clinton twice vetoed similar bills, arguing that they lacked an exception to protect the health of the mother, something the Supreme Court has said is required in abortion laws. The law Bush signed was challenged even before it took effect and has never been enforced. Challengers won rulings in New York, California and Nebraska that the law was unconstitutional because of the lack of a health exception.

The Supreme Court is already dealing with a similar issue, in a test of New Hampshire's parental notification statute. That case turns on whether the state law is unconstitutional because it lacks an exception allowing a minor to have an abortion to protect her health in the event of a medical emergency. The court should review both cases, Solicitor General Paul Clement said in the appeal, filed Friday and released Monday.

SNIP

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050926130709990008


Snippet from lyrics by Eric Schwartz

http://www.ericschwartz.com/Ericlyrics.html

Well I'm frickin' sick and tired
Of turning on the news
And seeing the religious right's
Ungodly fight to take our right to choose
When to bear our children
Who to love and how
Education and protection
If we're just practicing for now
So dubya look obey a book
If that's what works for you
But I don't tell you how to pray
So don't tell me how to screw

So you’re screaming bloody murder
'Bout the taliban regime
For subjugating women
And being too extreme
And basing legislation
On some ancient holy book
Does that sound a bit familiar?
Here's a mirror, have a look
So you'll execute a person
And protect a single cell
But mercy-kill the terminally ill
And you're goin' straight to hell
I don't know much about
The word of God
Far be it from me
But I can tell you what it ain't
Hypochristianity

I am not anti-Christian
Before you grab a rope
There is beauty in religion
And joy and love and hope
We're all looking for an answer
Some colossal cosmic cause
But who the fuck are you
To turn your views into my laws?
It's just believers in the bible
That would have abortion banned
Anti-choice agnostics?
I could count’em on one hand
And as for killing babies
I have but one retort
If someone raped your daughter George
You'd beg her to abort

[2Design]

1. must be election time coming up