Ruling on partial-birth abortion ban draws criticism, faces appeal

Published: 2004-06-02

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The June 1 decision by a federal judge in San Francisco declaring the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional "makes a mockery of the Constitution," said the U.S. bishops' chief pro-life spokeswoman. Cathy Cleaver Ruse, director of planning and information in the bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, said that by her decision U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton "has declared that Roe vs. Wade stands for the right to kill a child in the process of being born." "The American Medical Association says this procedure is never medically necessary," Ruse added in a June 1 statement. "To say that it is a fundamental constitutional right makes a mockery of the Constitution." But a legal expert said the decision, which placed an injunction on enforcement of the law in San Francisco and in some 900 Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide, was "the first stop on a lengthy legal road that ends at the Supreme Court of the United States." Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law & Justice, said he was "confident that the national ban on this horrific procedure ultimately will be declared constitutional."

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