Latest State to Have Its Abortion Law Blocked by a Federal Judge

[teko]

North Dakota is the latest state to have a new abortion law blocked in court. U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland issued a temporary injunction Monday to stop a North Dakota law banning abortions after six weeks from taking effect on August 1. Hovland wrote that the ban is "clearly invalid and unconstitutional." That follows similar decisions made by federal judges in Wisconsin and Arizona recently.


The law, which would have required doctors to check for a fetal heartbeat before performing an abortion, is one of the strictest to be passed in the nation. Doctors who violated it by performing an abortion after a heartbeat was detected would have faced up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Hovland wrote in his decision:

"There is no question that [the North Dakota law] is in direct contradiction to a litany of United States Supreme Court cases addressing restraints on abortion. [It] is clearly an invalid and unconstitutional law based on the United States Supreme Court precedent in Roe v. Wade from 1973 ... and the progeny of cases that have followed."
Wisconsin and Arizona have also passed restrictive abortion laws only to have them blocked or struck down by federal judges. Last week, a federal judge in Wisconsin extended a block on a law requiring abortion clinics to have hospital admitting privileges. The law was set to take effect July 5. In May, a federal court in Arizona struck down the state's ban on abortions after 20 weeks. Judge Marsha Berzon wrote that "a woman has a constitutional right to choose to terminate her pregnancy before the fetus is viable." Viability typically occurs at 24 weeks.


Texas remains undeterred by precedent. Last Thursday, Governor Rick Perry signed the controversial HB2 into law, which bans abortions after 20 weeks. Buoyed by that success, Republican representatives introduced a new fetal heartbeat bill that same day, which would ban abortions after six weeks. The reps who sponsored the new bill, HB59, know that it doesn't stand a chance of being passed this session, and they don't care. A spokeswoman for Rep. Dan Flynn, one of the sponsors, told the Huffington Post:

"We fully understand and recognize that the bill won't be heard, and they're okay with that. They wanted to at least put this on the radar for 2015."
Abortion rights activists plan to challenge HB2 in court.


http://news.yahoo.com/north-dakota-latest-state-abortion-law-blocked-federal-184000605.html

[specialmom]

Adgal, we are the same.  good to see you by the way.  

[adgal]

I think 20 weeks needs to be the maximum except under very extreme life threatening conditions.  I think that for abortions being performed due to mom just not wanting to be a mom (and I respect that even if I don't understand it) there really is not any reason it can't be done first trimester.  From first trimester to 20 weeks, I would like to see it be only for medical reasons.  However, not sure if I would be comfortable legislating that?  After 20 weeks though, I am ok with it being illegal, except again in those extreme circumstances.  If there is any possibility of the baby surviving outside the womb, for me it becomes a totally different scenario and the rights of the fetus become as important as the mom's rights.

[teko]

I have no issue with 20 weeks, 24 weeks, or even 16 weeks personally. But that is for me. I imagine there are many scenarios where too drastic restrictions would interfere with some things like, finding abnormalities then the time it takes for testing and the like for a diagnosis to fit into that timeline. My biggest objection is the obvious flagrant attempt to make it next to impossible for the women to get what is a legal procedure. It makes no sense to have to travel to one facility way across the state in order to get it, only to find there is a wait that will take you past your restricted time maybe. There has always been backup emergency plans in place at these clinics and that restriction again, is simply a way of making it harder to get the procedure. Am I the only one here old enuff to remember the back ally abortions? If a woman feels the necessity to get one she will get one even if she must do it herself with a coathanger or the like, simply out of desperation. It would appear that this is what they want to return to imo.

Lots of things give me ooky, icky feelings but I still think, it is not my right to dictate to someone else that because I may feel a certain way that they should bow to what I may think or feel. This is where I have a problem. I believe the person has a right to choose. Me I would not consider one, but wholeheartedly believe that a woman has a right to choose and those facilities and the availability should be convenient and affordable.

This is nothing more than certain groups of people dictating their wishes and their beliefs onto someone else and making them bow down to them. All in an attempt to show no need for roe. And eventually overturn it. Is their plan.

[specialmom]

Gosh, we talk about viability of a fetus as if it is nothing.  Have you ever seen a still born baby?  Before 20 weeks, they are fully formed and beautiful.  the medical cut off date between still born and miscarriage is 20 weeks.  

I just picture what routine abortions would look like at over 20 weeks.  Wow, that's a lot of cutting and scraping.  I certainly do hope that a doctor would have hospital privileges at that point.  

anyway, I know women who've lost a baby in utero at the late teen and early 20 mark.  They do not have an 'abortion'.  They were given the choice of carrying the baby and naturally expelling when the time came or inducing labor.  What if you induce labor of a 23 week old baby and he is breathing?  Just leave him there?  Gross.  Are they going to whisk the baby off and put a pillow over it to stop any potential breathing?  

We throw around these numbers and honestly, after having a child, carrying a child . . .   I don't think we should be moving that point of having to decide whether to have an abortion or not back.  

It DOES get more complicated past the first trimester.   And I don't get needing past 20 weeks to decide to terminate for an abortion.  And 24 weeks?  That's insane.  

TEKO:::  I do get that you are just posting these for information.  :>)  I think actually often you and I agree on abortion in general.  Just all this talk of it being okay to abort at 20 to 24 weeks gives me an ooky feeling.  

[teko]

Its all about getting it down is right. I posted this more as an informational piece as I had been posting about these laws being passed so this is the latest development. My guess is before long, they will decide life begins with the sperm and will start regulating men and what they do with em and how....lol

[Vance2335]

Well at 24 weeks the baby has a good chance of survival, for 24 weeks it is less then 50%. So that is why I said 24 weeks. Don't think anyone is pushing for later abortions, this is all about getting it down.

[specialmom]

Tell that to my son's buddies, twins born at 23 weeks.  I would never think abortion is okay past 20 weeks and 20 weeks is pushing it.  At that point, different things come into play including how an abortion is done.  Some women that far along go through actual induced labor to protect their future fertility.  

I'm okay with a 16 week cut off unless the abortion is needed for medical reasons for the mother or developmental reasons for the child.  

When people start pushing for later and later abortions, I start to dig in and hate abortion.  

[Vance2335]

I will agree that at 24 weeks the baby is better suited to live outside of the mother. I think 24 weeks would be a good cut off time frame.