SCOTUS decision on abortion seems to ban all D&E procedures

[librechik]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/18/supreme-partial-birth

...
"UPDATE IV: The nation’s leading group of professionals providing health care for women, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, opposed this law because the banned procedure is often the best option for women:

The intact variant of D&E offers significant safety advantages over the non-intact method, including a reduced risk of catastrophic hemorrhage and life-threatening infection. These safety advantages are widely recognized by experts in the field of women’s health, authoritative medical texts, peer-reviewed studies, and the nation’s leading medical schools."

...

ON EDIT: The American College of Obstetricians and gynecologists Filed an Amicus brief in the case.

http://www.acog.org/from_home/publications/press_releases/nr09-22-06.cfm

...

"The Act purports to ban so-called "partial-birth abortions;" however, "partial-birth abortion" is not a medical term and is not recognized in the field of medicine. The Act defines "partial-birth abortion" in a way that encompasses a variation of dilatation and evacuation (D&E), the most common method of second-trimester abortion, in which the fetus remains intact as it is removed from the woman's uterus. The Act's definition also encompasses some D&E procedures in which the fetus is not removed intact.

Over 95% of induced abortions in the second trimester are performed using the D&E method. The alternatives to D&E in the second trimester are abdominal surgery or induction abortion. Doctors rarely perform an abortion by abdominal surgery because doing so entails far greater risks to the woman. The induction method imposes serious risks to women with certain medical conditions and is entirely contraindicated for others.

The intact variant of D&E offers significant safety advantages over the non-intact method, including a reduced risk of catastrophic hemorrhage and life-threatening infection. These safety advantages are widely recognized by experts in the field of women's health, authoritative medical texts, peer-reviewed studies, and the nation's leading medical schools. ACOG has thus concluded that an intact D&E "may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of the woman, and only the doctor in consultation with the patient, based on the woman's particular circumstances can make that decision."

ACOG objects to the 2003 federal ban because it exposes women to serious, unnecessary health risks and does not include any exception to protect women's health. In addition, ACOG objects to the Act's vague and overly broad terms because doctors will be unable to determine whether their actions are prohibited by the Act. As a result, the Act will deter doctors from providing a wide range of procedures used to safely perform induced abortions. "



Thom Hartmann was talking about this earlier. He reads the decision as banning all dilation and evacuation (i.e. vacuum procedures through the cervix, the most common abortion procedure and the safest, since the zygote is usually just a few cells) since there is no mention of which stage the procedure is banned.

This is not acceptable. The religious delusions of five Catholic guys shouldn't rule the lives of every woman and doctor in the country.

Somebody tell me I am wrong about this. Please.

[rockymountaindem]

1. That's frightening n/.t

[eyesroll]

2. "As we have noted, the Act does not proscribe D&E." (p. 41 of the pdf)

The opinion describes the process the Act bans; it seems to allow all procedures, at any stage, that do NOT involve intact delivery of a live fetus to a certain point.

If the fetus is dead before the procedure (either naturally or deliberately), it's allowed. If the fetus is not intact at the time it passes through the cervix, it's allowed.

How this gets interpreted is anyone's guess but it does not, on its face, ban all D&E.

[rockymountaindem]

3. Okay, so the ruling bans a practice that actually *never* happens, then?

If it doesn't ban D&E, what's it for? I mean aside from the thingy about some kind of threshold of constitutionality and the right to privacy and all that other stuff the Alito wing seemingly doesn't care about :sarcasm:

[eyesroll]

5. It bans a rare practice, yes.

How far this will stretch, and how it will be interpreted, is anyone's guess.


More importantly, it throws a bone to conservatives...wingnuts know that if they ban abortion completely, they lose it as a wedge issue so these little "victories" are more important.

What gets me about this opinion isn't what it bans or doesn't ban -- it's that it really really messes with 14th Amendment equal protection and due process. I'm still foggy on this part, as I only skimmed the opinion, but it seems to say that because the vast majority of the people who would be affected by a ban have other choices, it's constitutional to deny the procedure to the tiny number of others who DON'T have the choice. If that's really what it means, then that's not equal protection, and I think this reasoning could have far-reaching effects way beyond a rare procedure.

[librechik]

6. ACOG says this will effect ABs in the second trimester and later

[librechik]

4. Thanks, eyesroll. That's sort of a relief. I guess.

early D&Es in the first few weeks will be allowed ?(only time they should happen at all anyway, IMO)

This makes me very nervous. The next 50 years are going to be hard on women here in the US if this is an indication of where we are headed

[HuffleClaw]

7. well DUH.

EVERYTHING they do has the end goal of outlawing ALL abortion (and contraception for that matter). this is a SURPRISE?

[tiptoe]

8. & everything has to do w Election Fraud -- & anti-democracy factions imposing their will on people,

including medical experts, here and abroad...via appointments to SCOTUS especially.

http://tinyurl.com/QKK23