> Judge refuses to hold up new abortion law
>
> Failure to grant a restraining order on the law may
> delay some second-trimester procedures, critics say.
>
> By Compiled from staff, wire reports
>
> A9 St. Petersburg Times, published May 27, 2000
>
> MIAMI -- A federal judge denied an organization's request Friday for an
> emergency restraining order to stop a law from being enforced that bans a
> type of late-term abortion.
>
> The Center for Reproductive Law and Policy filed a federal lawsuit
> challenging
> the state law enacted only a day before, but U.S. District Judge Joan
> Lenard
> said the issue should be decided after hearing from the state's lawyers.
>
> The state was not able to attend the hastily arranged hearing. The judge
> scheduled a hearing for Wednesday.
>
> Lawyers representing abortion clinics and doctors warned that women
> scheduled for second-trimester abortions may not be able to get them for at
> least the next four days, until a hearing is held. Gov. Jeb Bush signed
> the ban into law Thursday.
>
> Charlene Carres, a Tallahassee lawyer representing abortion doctors and
> clinics, argues that the new law is written so broadly that it could cover
> second-term abortion procedures other than so-called "partial-birth"
> abortions.
>
> Proponents of the ban dispute that, saying it is narrowly drawn. Still,
> Carres
> predicts that doctors, who face a second-degree felony charge for
> performing
> the banned procedure, will stop performing all second-term abortions until
> either an injunction is in place or the courts clear up the matter.
>
> "That's a real issue because generally when women are seeking second-term
> abortions, it's because of their health or the health of the fetus," Carres
> said.
>
> Doctors who perform the procedure, which is medically known as dilation and
> extraction or D&X, could be sentenced if convicted to 15 years in prison
> and fined $10,000.
>
> Bush was in Fort Lauderdale on Friday morning to sign technology reform
> legislation, but his spokeswoman, Elizabeth Hirst, later said, "The
> governor is
> hopeful that the court will agree that this is a particularly gruesome act,
> typically performed late in a woman's pregnancy and is not typically tied
> specifically to the health of the mother."