4th Circuit strikes down Va. partial birth abortion ban
The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirms the same court’s 2005 ruling striking down the law. The Supreme Court had ordered the appeals court to take another look at Virginia’s statute after the ruling on the federal ban.
The appeals court cited a key difference between the federal and state bans on the procedure that abortion opponents call “partial-birth abortion.” The federal law protects doctors who set out to perform a legal abortion that by accident becomes the banned procedure. The Virginia statute provides no such protection.
The case is Richmond Medical Center v. Herring.
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I was not aware that the federal ban on partial birth abortion had a provision in it protecting doctors from blundering and “accidentally” performing a late term abortion. Those justices were “too nice”…too bad doctors don’t get more court protection from covetous litigationists who want to sue their pants off for a broken finger nail incurred during surgery.
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