Foes cheer ban on abortion method

Anti-abortion forces in Washington state called Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling banning a controversial abortion procedure a major victory.

The banned technique, which opponents call “partial-birth” abortion, is also known as intact dilation and extraction.

“This is the first time in 34 years that the court has upheld a ban” on any kind of abortion procedure, said Sister Sharon Park, executive director of the Washington State Catholic Conference, the church’s statewide public policy group.

On this particular issue, the majority of Americans “really do support limitations on abortions,” Park said. “I don’t think the Supreme Court went too far afield from being right in accord with the American society on this issue.”

The court ruling was made in a 5-4 decision Wednesday. For the first time since the court established a woman’s right to an abortion in 1973, the justices said the Constitution permits a nationwide prohibition on a specific abortion method. The court’s liberal justices, in dissent, said the ruling chipped away at abortion rights.

Some physicians joined with groups such as Planned Parenthood in criticizing the court’s decision.

“It’s just a very dark day for women’s health and safety,” said Kristen Glundberg-Prossor, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Western Washington. “It tells women that politicians and not doctors will make their health-care decisions for them.”

Dr. Robert Palmer of Port Townsend, former state chairman of the Washington section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said he worried about the precedent the court was setting.

“We’re concerned,” Palmer said. “What role does the government play in the practice of medicine? Is this a slippery slope?”

Dr. Douglas Laube, president of the American College Obstetricians and Gynecologists, was more outspoken in a statement on his group’s Web site.

“It leaves no doubt that women’s health in America is perceived as being of little consequence,” he said.

In 2000, the court, with key differences in its membership, struck down a state of Nebraska ban on the abortion procedure. Writing for a 5-4 majority at that time, Justice Stephen Breyer said the law imposed an undue burden on a woman’s right to make an abortion decision, in part because it lacked an exception that would allow the procedure if needed to preserve a woman’s health.

The Republican-controlled Congress responded in 2003 by passing a federal law that asserted the procedure is gruesome, inhumane and never medically necessary to preserve a woman’s health. That statement was designed to overcome the health exception to restrictions that the court has demanded in abortion cases.

More than 1 million abortions are performed in the United States each year, according to recent statistics. Nearly 90 percent of those occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and are not affected by Wednesday’s ruling.

The procedure at issue involves partially removing the fetus intact from a woman’s uterus, then crushing or cutting its skull to complete the abortion.

Abortion opponents say the law will not reduce the number of abortions performed because an alternate method – dismembering the fetus in the uterus – is available and is much more common.

The Guttmacher Institute says 2,200 intact dilation and extraction procedures were performed in 2000, the latest figures available.

Glunberg-Prossor, the Planned Parenthood spokeswoman, said that in Washington, 74 percent of abortions are performed in the first trimester of pregnancy using another procedure.

Their clinics do not perform the banned procedure, she said.

Intact dilation and extraction is used for later-term abortions, or those that are done 14 weeks after the first day of the woman’s last period, said Dr. Campbell McIntyre, medical director for Planned Parenthood’s Western Washington clinics.

McIntyre said he did not think the banned procedure is being done in Washington.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.