Amy Goodman: Supreme Court Ruling Threatens Women's Health

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Supreme Court Ruling Threatens Women's Health

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. Posted April 19, 2007.

The Supreme Court's decision to uphold a ban on late-term abortion without an exception for the health of the mother sends a signal that, in many respects, the court thinks legislators, not doctors, are the ones best positioned to make health decisions.

The Supreme Court handing down what's being called one of the biggest setbacks for the abortion rights movement in years. On Wednesday, the court voted 5-4 to uphold a ban on late-term abortion. The so-called Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was signed into law in 2003, but it had been held up by rulings from lower courts. The Supreme Court ruling marks the first time justices have agreed a specific abortion procedure can be banned. It's also the first time since Roe v. Wade that justices approved an abortion restriction that does not contain an exception for the health of the mother.

In her dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the decision "alarming" and "irrational." She said, " tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists." She later continues, " cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court -- and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives."

Amy Goodman discusses the implications of the ruling with Louise Melling, director of the Reproductive Freedom Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. As an attorney, Melling has appeared in federal and state courts around the country to challenge laws that restrict reproductive rights.

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