In the famous court case known as Gonzales v. Carhart, the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 was protected by the decision of the United States Supreme Court on December 18, 2007. The case was heard by Chief Justice William Rehnquist (1924 – 2005), Associate Justices John Paul Stevens (1920 - ), Antonin Gregory Scalia (1936 - ), Anthony McLeod Kennedy (1936 - ), Clarence Thomas (1948 - ), Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg (1933 - ), David Hackett Souter (1939 - ), Stephen Gerald Breyer (1938 - ) and Sandra Day O’Connor (1930 - ).
Sternberg V. Carhart Case Appealed
The Sternberg v. Carhart case was appealed by United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales after the United States Court of Appeals for the Eight District ruled in favor of Dr. LeRoy Carhart (1941 - ). He was a noted Nebraska physician who performed the intact dilation and extraction of the human fetus from the uterus via the cervix abortion before it was confirmed to be illegal in the state of Nebraska.
Dr. Carhart first filed a law suit in opposition to Nebraska Attorney General Don Sternberg since the state law banned dilation and extraction. The United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor provided the winning 5 - 4 vote for the case of Dr. LeRoy Carhart on grounds that the Nebraska state law did not consider any rare cases such as the health of the mothers. That court battle was known as Sternberg v. Carhart which was argued and decided in 2000.
For abortion rights activists or pro – choice supporters, this was the one important case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that laws banning partial birth abortion. Of course that was if the laws did not make an exception for the health of the woman, or if they can not be reasonably construed to apply to the partial birth abortion of intact dilation, the extraction process and not to additional abortion methods.
Partial Birth Abortion Bill Passes
Florida Republican State Representative and pro life supporter Charles T. Canady (1954 - ) was the first person to have coin the term “partial birth abortion” in 1995. Then shortly afterwards, United States Congress passed identical laws banning “partial birth abortion” at the end of 1995 and then in October, 1997. President Bill Clinton, however, vetoed the bill.
However, it was in 2003, 218 Republicans along with 63 Democrats supported the final legislation of the Partial Birth Abortion bill. In the Senate, there were 47 Republican and 17 Democrat supporters of the Partial Birth Abortion bill. The Harkin Amendment which was also included within the Partial Birth Abortion bill was taken out by President George W. Bush before it was signed into law on November 5, 2003 because it stressed support for the pro abortion case Roe v. Wade.
Notes
The Ethics of Abortion: Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice (Contemporary Issues) Prometheus Books; 3rd edition (September 2001)
Marquis Canaday - I take pleasure in writing about subjects that deal with civilizations in general, world history, U.S history, economics, occasionally ...
