Nebraska judge finds Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional

LINCOLN, Neb. -- A third federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is unconstitutional, saying it fails to include an exception when a woman's health is in danger.\nU.S. District Judge Richard Kopf in Lincoln, Neb., said Congress ignored the most experienced doctors in determining that the banned procedure would never be necessary.\n"According to responsible medical opinion, there are times when the banned procedure is medically necessary to preserve the health of a woman and a respectful reading of the congressional record proves that point," Kopf wrote. "No reasonable and unbiased person could come to a different conclusion."\nThe abortion ban was signed last year by President George W. Bush but was not enforced because three federal judges in Lincoln, New York and San Francisco agreed to hear constitutional challenges in simultaneous non-jury trials.\nLast month, U.S. District Judge Richard C. Casey in New York said the Supreme Court has made it clear that a banned procedure must allow an exception to preserve a woman's health -- even as he called the abortion procedure "gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized."\nIn June, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in San Francisco also found the law unconstitutional, saying it "poses an undue burden on a woman's right to choose an abortion."\nAll three decisions were expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court. The Justice Department filed an appeal of the San Francisco ruling and said in a statement that it "will continue to defend the law to protect innocent new life from partial-birth abortion."\nThe Nebraska lawsuit was filed by New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of physicians, including Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who brought an earlier challenge that led the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 to overturn a similar ban passed by Nebraska lawmakers.\n"It's a shame that I have to continue going to court, fighting the same fight to protect my patients' health," Carhart said Wednesday. "But if the government takes this battle back to the Supreme Court, I will continue the fight to be able to provide the safest care for my patients."\nNebraska Right to Life Director Julie Schmit-Albin declined immediate comment because she had not yet read the ruling.\nThe federal law bars a procedure doctors called "intact dilation and extraction," or D&X, and opponents call partial-birth abortion.\nDuring the procedure, generally performed in the second trimester, a fetus is partially removed from the womb and its skull is punctured or crushed.