SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California has declared unconstitutional a federal law that attempts to ban certain medical procedures that abortion-rights opponents call “partial-birth” abortions.
Federal District Judge Phyllis Hamilton of San Francisco, in a decision handed down June 1, ruled the law — passed last year by Congress and signed into law by President Bush — was unconstitutionally vague in its definitions of the procedures it prohibits. Hamilton accepted virtually all the arguments put forth by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which filed suit to block the law.
She also said the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act violates previous decisions requiring any law limiting abortions to grant exceptions in cases where a health risk in involved.
Hamilton determined the law is unconstitutional because it bans procedures physicians could use if complications happened from otherwise legal abortion procedures, which she said would discourage abortion providers from performing all abortions.
Congress included a set of “findings of fact” along with the bill. The findings — drawn from the testimony of physicians who oppose the procedure — concluded that the procedure was never medically necessary to preserve a woman’s health. However, conclusive studies do not exist, and many medical professionals and organizations disagree.
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