Reply #62: Court sides with Navy over abortion...

[Bigmack]

And yet even MORE "compassionate conservatism"....

Friday, August 19, 2005

Court sides with Navy in dispute over abortion
By PAUL SHUKOVSKY SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Calling its own decision "callous and unfeeling," a federal appeals court ruled Thursday against a Navy sailor's wife from Everett who aborted a horribly deformed fetus that was destined to die.

The woman wanted her military health insurance plan to pay for the procedure, but the three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that its hands were tied: U.S. armed forces medical benefits don't cover abortions unless the pregnant woman's life is at risk. The court ruled that it must defer to a congressional mandate, saying it could not "judge the wisdom, fairness or logic of legislative choices."

In its 3-0 ruling, the court said the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of congressional bans on federal funding of abortion in its ruling on the Hyde Amendment almost 25 years ago. The panel's opinion concluded on a sympathetic note: "While recognizing that the foregoing discussion may seem at times callous and unfeeling, we express our deepest sympathy for the families who must face this difficult ordeal."

The case for the Everett woman, identified only as Jane Doe, began in 2002, when a doctor discovered that her fetus had no brain or skull, would likely be stillborn, and even if born alive, would die within a few weeks. It's a condition called anencephaly, which is always fatal.


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/237239_navywife19.html