A US federal judge has overthrown a North Dakota law banning abortion after the foetus' heartbeat can be detected, as early as six weeks in some cases.
District Judge Daniel Hovland found the law "invalid and unconstitutional" on Wednesday.
The North Dakota abortion law was considered the most restrictive in the nation.
The state attorney general has not yet announced whether he plans to appeal against the decision.
"The United States Supreme Court has spoken and has unequivocally said no state may deprive a woman of the choice to terminate her pregnancy at a point prior to viability," Judge Hovland wrote in his ruling.
If this law had been allowed to stand it would have essentially outlawed abortions after only eight weeks. That means that many women would lose the option before they even realized they were pregnant.
It is pretty clear that these attacks on woman's right to choose are going to keep on coming until the anti-abortion crowd can get a court case all the way to the Supreme Court.
I believe they feel that if they can get it to the highest court in the land that the Justices will either dramatically undermine Roe vs Wade, or do away with it all together.
I wish I could have confidence that they are wrong in that assessment.
OT, but ha, ha, ha, Palin has a Facebook post up about her being in Nebraska next week but still no mention of her "gift from God's" birthday today. There is one lady in the comments that wishes Trig a happy 6th birthday, other than that, crickets, from both her and Bristol. Little "special" prop seems to not be first and foremost in any of their minds. And Sarah saying she can't run for Senate because she has a very young and active family....seems like she doesn't think about her "young and active family very much".
ReplyDeleteAll these 'fiscally conservatives' a$$holes are WASTING TAXPAYERS money, because they know EXACTLY that the laws they are passing will not stand up to scrutiny. They are just like little kids, throwing spitballs up to the ceiling, trying to see how many will stick. Meanwhile, they spend MILLIONS of $$$ on trying to bring the US back into the Dark Ages. I just wish that they would be made to PAY out of their own pockets for these frivolous laws and the ensuing lawsuits.
ReplyDeleteThese poor, deluded conservatives - I know several personally - are sadly too ignorant to know that Roe vs. Wade
ReplyDeletesaved thousands and thousands of lives.
The reason Roe vs. Wade made it all the way to the Supreme Court in the first place was because so god-damn many women died every year from botched abortions.
Think about that: abortion was illegal.
That didn't stop abortions - it made them dangerous to the point of being deadly.
THAT is what the conservatives want to go back to.
...because they are either ignorant
-- or they're just plain mean.
Unfortunately, I think the people who are behind these draconian state laws about abortion want women to die. In their minds, it is the appropriate punishment for any woman who chooses to have an abortion. It must harken back to the "eye for an eye" mentality.
DeleteBeaglemom
You seem to be forgetting, Randall, that those assholes don't CARE about the women involved. To them they are damaged goods AT BIRTH - at least that's the way it seems to me with them blaming women for everything just because some woman SUPPOSEDLY ate an apple!
DeleteWomen have been basically trash and pecker holes and kitchen slaves for as long as the middle eastern religions have been around to make it "official". (And a lot before that as well, probably, but they don't believe those days ever existed! What is it they claim? 6000 years?)
HBO did an excellent film called "If These Walls Could Talk", it's available in it's entirety on you tube. It shows the atrocities of back alley abortions, among other things, and the effect the original women's liberation movie and Roe V Wade had to remedy them.
ReplyDeleteWomen were struck until their uterus burst, killing both the mother and child. Infections, coat hangers, saline injections and forced labor.... there are no words to adequately describe what happened.
When I was an escort at Planned Parenthood, most of the protesters were "pro life" at all costs but referred pregnant women to "agencies" that had poor track records with the health department. What gives them the right to deny someone else's choice?