Roundup: Last One to The Supreme Court Is a Rotten Egg

[A]bortion opponents are looking for opportunities to push the court even further in restricting abortion.

“I think National Right to Life wants to see something go to the Supreme Court that would provide more protection to the unborn child,” said Mary Spaulding Balch, a lobbyist for the organization.

A new Nebraska legislative proposal could provide that opportunity.

Legislative Bill 1103 would ban abortions after 20 weeks unless the procedure would save a woman's life or “avert serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”

Speaker of the Legislature Mike Flood of Norfolk said he didn't introduce the bill with the goal of having it wind up before the Supreme Court.

Rather, he wants to stop Dr. LeRoy Carhart of Bellevue from becoming the region's main provider of late-term abortions.

Opponents as well as supporters of abortion rights agree the proposal would go beyond what current high court rulings allow.

“This bill is unconstitutional as it's drafted,” said Janet Crepps, of the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights.

“Anybody who supports the bill should be clear that this is just a vehicle for them to go back to the Supreme Court and take rights away from women,” she said.

A legislator who has travelled the world as a Baptist minister wants Florida to ban abortion — inviting a U.S. Supreme Court rematch over law, morality and medicine.

Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Keystone Heights, cites the state and federal Constitutions, as well as the Declaration of Independence, in asserting that all people are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that the first among these rights is the right to life." Nearly one-third of his "Florida for Life Act" is devoted to legislative "findings," including statements that life begins at conception and that the high court’s 1973 and 1992 rulings legalizing abortion were wrong.

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Stephanie Kunkel, state director of Planned Parenthood, called the bill "totally unconstitutional." She said polls and experience in other states show the public to be pro-choice, although the Republican-run Legislature leans the other way to varying degrees.

"This is the most rigid and inflexible ban on abortion in the United States," said Kunkel. "Not only does it ban abortion, it also has absolutely no exceptions for rape or incest."

She said abortion opponents tried a similar plan in South Dakota with a ballot initiative that lost by 56-44 percent in 2006. Two years later, she said, another abortion ban was voted down in that state.

"His ultimate goal here is to challenge the Supreme Court’s decision, Roe v. Wade, by passing an unconstitutional bill," she said. "This fight would have to end up in the U.S. Supreme Court."

The conservative Roberts Court might reverse the Roe ruling, she said. That’s about the only thing Kunkel and Van Zant agree on. 

The Republican-majority Ohio Senate approved a resolution Feb. 17 urging federal officials to refrain from allowing public funding of abortions or establishing national laws that usurp states' regulation of the procedure.

The resolution, passed on a party-line vote with Republicans supporting and Democrats opposing, is a preemptive strike against the national Freedom of Choice Act -- legislation that has not been introduced in Congress this session.

Sens. Tim Grendell (R-Chesterland) and Steve Buehrer (R-Delta) said the federal act would create the right to an abortion and prevent states from regulating abortion procedures.

The Senate resolution urges President Barack Obama and members of Congress to oppose the act, should it be introduced.

The House of Representatives yesterday paved the way for Hawaii to become the first state in the nation to repeal its abortion law.

The repeal bill passed by a 31-20 vote and is expected to breeze through the Senate on Tuesday.

Every member voted on the measure.

Barring major defects in the bill, Gov. John A. Burns is expected to let the bill become law without his signature.

It will automatically become law 10 days after he receives it.

The Governor has stated in the past that he supports repeal.

Although the measure is laced with amendments, it still retains its basic intent—to repeal Hawaii's 101-year-old abortion law.

"I am glad that it is all over," Rep. George W.T. Loo said.

"I feel this is something we all can live by, and I hope it is not abused."

Loo, co-chairman of the joint conference committee that worked out the compromise bill, originally brought the issue to legislative attention several years ago.

The current law says a woman may get an abortion only when her life is in danger.

The bill would repeal this and make abortion a matter of conscience between a woman and her physician