Abortion opponents won a big victory on Wednesday when the Supreme Court issued a politically explosive ruling upholding the first national ban on a specific abortion procedure since the landmark Roe v Wade decision in 1973.
The 5-4 ruling, which upheld the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, marks a significant shift to the right by the US\u2019s top court on one of the country\u2019s most divisive issues.
The ruling demonstrated for the first time the full impact on the court of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, the two conservatives appointed by George W. Bush, the president. Both men voted to restrict abortion rights in the case, helping form a more conservative majority on the issue.
Conservative politicians immediately welcomed the ruling. Mr Bush said: \u201cThe Supreme Court\u2019s decision is an affirmation of the progress we have made over the past six years in protecting human dignity and upholding the sanctity of life. We will continue to work for the day when every child is welcomed in life and protected in law.\u201d
But liberals said it marked a \u201cseismic shift\u201d in the court\u2019s jurisprudence. \u201cThe new justices have shown their cards,\u201d said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, who said the ruling was a \u201cstunning assault on women\u2019s health\u201d.
\u201cThe impact of Sandra Day O\u2019Connor\u2019s retirement is painfully clear,\u201d she said, referring to the departure last year of the court\u2019s liberal swing voter on abortion.
The majority stopped short of overruling any precedents upholding abortion rights, including Roe v Wade, which first gave US women a constitutional right to end their pregnancies.
However, the language of the ruling conveyed, at best, a lukewarm attitude to abortion rights precedents and seems to herald a more receptive approach to abortion restrictions.
The law is aimed primarily at a procedure known as intact dilation and extraction, a relatively rare technique used by some doctors in the second trimester of pregnancy. Most US abortions are performed during the first trimester.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote a dissent on behalf of the court\u2019s liberal wing, called the decision \u201calarming\u201d. She said it \u201ccannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court \u2013 and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women\u2019s lives\u201d.
She said Wednesday\u2019s Supreme Court decision \u201cshould not have staying power\u201d: a veiled reference to the fact that, if Democrats won the next presidential election they might be able to shift the court\u2019s majority on abortion again by appointing a new more liberal justice.
In the meantime, legal experts say, the ruling is likely to inspire political conservatives in state overnments to push for new measures to restrict abortion rights.
\u201cThis is an invitation to all sorts of legislative mischief that endangers women\u2019s health\u201d said Talcott Camp of the American Civil Liberties Union\u2019s reproductive freedom project.
The majority left open the possibility that a woman whose health is threatened could challenge the ban in court. But Ms Camp dismissed the utility of these individual challenges. \u201cDo we want women lining up, bleeding, waiting for a permission slip from the court?\u201d she said.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
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