Todd M. Siebert: Federal judges say Roe v. Wade obsolete

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Even as public horror over the abortion industry surges in reaction to videos revealing Planned Parenthood executives negotiating the prices of the body parts of unborn babies, another development is emerging that could impact abortion in a much more fundamental way.

It’s a push for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit its rulings on abortion.

And it’s coming from judges on two federal appeals courts, the 8th and the 5th circuits.

“The court’s viability standard has proven unsatisfactory because it gives too little consideration to the ‘substantial state interest in potential life throughout pregnancy,’” said an opinion by Judge Bobby Shepherd of the 8th Circuit, who was joined by Lavenski Smith and Duane Benton.

“Good reasons exist for the court to re-evaluate its jurisprudence,” he wrote.

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The opinion explained medical and scientific advances reveal the fault in the court’s viability standard.

“For example, although ‘states in the 1970s lacked the power to ban an abortion of a 24-week-old-fetus because that fetus would not have satisfied the viability standard of that time, today … that same fetus would be considered viable, and states would have the power to restrict[such] abortions.’”

The opinion noted that in the 1992 Casey case, the last affirmation of abortion “rights” in the U.S., even the Supreme Court “already acknowledged that viability continues to occur earlier in pregnancy.”

“When the court decided Roe in 1973, viability generally occurred at 28 weeks. In 1992, viability ‘sometimes’ occurred at 23 to 24 weeks. Today, viability generally occurs at 24 weeks, but it may occur weeks earlier.”

The ruling also said the facts “underlying Roe and Casey may have changed.”

For one thing, the assumption has been that women will make abortion decisions in consultation with their physician. Not so, said the court decision.

The case documents reveal: “Women may receive abortions without consulting the physician beforehand and without receiving followup care after,” the 8th Circuit said. They also said “Women may not be given information about the abortion procedure or its possible complications … and …. the abortion clinic may function ‘like a mill.’”

Further, there are declarations “from women who have had abortions [that] show abortions may cause adverse consequences for the woman’s health and well-being. On woman reported that ‘the negate effects of my abortion resulted in 10 years of mental and emotional torment.’”

Significantly, the plaintiff in the Roe v. Wade case through which the Supreme Court created the constitutional right to abortion, Norma McCorvey, “sought relief from the judgment in her case on the ground that changed factual and legal circumstances rendered Roe unjust,” the court found.

“Finally, the state argues that, by enacting a law that permits parents to abandon unwanted infants at hospitals without consequence, it has reduced the burden of child care that the court identified in Roe.”

The comments came in a ruling that struck down a proposed heartbeat bill in North Dakota under which abortions would be banned after a fetal heartbeat is detected.

The judges said they were bound by the Supreme Court’s precedents to strike the law but then argued that there were reasons the high court needs to take another look. The lawsuit against the state law had been brought by MKB Management Corp., which operates an abortion business under the direction of Kathryn Eggleston.

In a commentary on the issue, Jonathan Adler, teacher of constitutional and other law at Case Western University School of Law, predicted that the Supreme Court will “revisit the contentious subject of abortion next term.”

He suggested, however, that the pro-abortion forces on the court would prevail in a showdown over major changes.

Another case looming for the U.S. Supreme Court on abortion comes from Texas.

In that case, the justices already have intervened on their own, making it highly likely that the court is planning to review the decision.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a Texas state law requiring abortion business operators to have admitting privileges at local hospitals is constitutional.

The court found the rule does not create an unconstitutional obstacle to abortion.

But an order from the U.S. Supreme Court halted the application of the law, at least temporarily.

The order said the 5th Circuit ruling “is stayed pending the timely filing and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari.”

The ruling noted that it was issued by the narrowest of margins, with four justices refusing to endorse the idea. They would have let the limit stand.

The abortion-business operators are arguing that the requirement restricts the right to obtain an abortion by forcing them to have a working relationship with a local hospital in case an emergency would arise.

WND has reported the Texas law would leave only about eight abortion facilities running in the state where recently there had been as many as 40.

“By forcing abortion facilities to abide by this law, the court correctly recognized that safety standards trump political rhetoric demanding access to abortion, however unsafe and subpar it may be,” said Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America. “There is no right to an unsafe abortion and for abortion advocates to promote a lower standard of care for women just to ensure the sacred cow of abortion remains intact is morally indefensible.”

The Alliance Defending Freedom joined with Life Legal Defense Foundation, Texas Center for Defense of Life, American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Donna Harrison, M.D., Abby Johnson, And Then There Were None, Carol Everett and The Heidi Group to file a friend-of-the-court brief last year.

The 5th Circuit ruling affirmed a provision that requires abortion businesses to meet the same health and safety standards as “ambulatory surgical centers” and another provision granting abortionists admitting privileges at a local hospital, in case of complications.

WND reported one of the recent videos exposing Planned Parenthood features executive Deborah Nucatola talking openly over lunch about partial birth abortion and compensation for baby body parts.

Another shows a California Planned Parenthood executive, Mary Gatter, warning that she won’t be “low-balled” on prices.

WND also reported the videos were not the first revelations about Planned Parenthood’s body-parts business.

One document uncovered by a pro-life organization dated June 1998 points out that the price per specimen from a second-trimester abortion is $90 fresh and $130 frozen.

Mark Crutcher, whose Life Dynamics organization was a ground-breaker in investigating the abortion behemoth that gets some $500 million annually from U.S. taxpayers, told WND he documented Planned Parenthood charging $220 per specimen as far back as June 1998.

Crutcher reported the “tissue logs reveal that one baby is often chopped up and sold to many buyers.”

He calculated buyers would have been invoiced between $3,510 and $5,070 for the parts.

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Judges say Roe v. Wade standard ‘has proven unsatisfactory’

from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/federal-judges-say-roe-v-wade-obsolete/