Just one day after the upcoming election, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on two cases challenging the “Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003″. These cases will test the right-wing’s power to limit medical options for women.
From USA Today (via Naral.org)-
‘It was just after Mother’s Day in May 2003 when Ilene Jaroslaw, about four months pregnant, learned that the fetus she was carrying had a fatal spinal cord and brain defect.’
‘Jaroslaw, then a mother of two, says she was devastated but decided immediately to have an abortion. Because she wanted to have another child — and because she had had two previous cesarean-section deliveries and an unrelated surgery on her uterus — she agreed with her doctor’s recommendation to undergo a procedure that would do as little damage as possible to the uterus.’
‘Under a federal law passed by Congress in October 2003 and tied up in the courts ever since, Jaroslaw could not legally have undergone the procedure because her life was not in danger.’
‘Jaroslaw’s reasons for having the procedure — to preserve her ability to have more children by avoiding the hemorrhaging and perforation of the uterus that can occur with other abortion methods — would not have cleared the legal hurdle set by Congress.’
The article also details the story of a woman whose fetus was missing part of it’s brain and would not have survived, so she was forced to have the same procedure. Under the “Partial Birth Abortion Ban”, that procedure would not have been available and the mother would have had to carry the infant to full term.
Read the full story at USA Today…
The decision to uphold the ban will made by Bush’s right-leaning Supreme Court, and could open the door to additional limits on abortions. Perhaps this will motivate the estimated 20 million single women who did not vote in the 2004 Presidential election, to get out and vote!
