Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Carhart Summary

ampersand at dailyKos has an extremely good summary and predictive piece on the Carhart abortion decision today. The key part:

What Kennedy is saying here is that if pro-lifers pass an abortion ban without any health exception, then women can successfully sue to have the ban overturned only in "as applied" cases. So a ban might not be illegal generally, but it still might be illegal in the case of Betty Smith of Memphis. But Betty Smith must to convince a court the ban "as applied" to women with her specific health circumstances is unconstitutional because it threatens her health.

Even if one lawsuit is successful in overturning the law "as applied" to the particular person who sued, the law could still apply to other women in other circumstances - meaning all those women would have to sue individually if they think the law is unconstitutionally being applied to them. The net effect could be to make it much harder for pro-choice activists to get Courts to consider whether or not new abortion-related laws are Constitutional.


2008's elections just became majorly important on another front.


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