U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Ban on Partial-Birth Abortion
Gonzales v. Carhart (No. 05-380)
Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Federation (No. 05-1382)

In an opinion issued April 18, 2007, the United States Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on partial-birth abortion. Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion for the five-justice majority, which included Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, and Justice Alito. Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer dissented.

In 2000, the Court struck down Nebraska’s ban on partial-birth abortion in Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000). In 2003, Congress passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (18 U.S.C. sec. 1531), which President Bush signed into law.

Planned Parenthood and abortionist Leroy Carhart challenged the ban in separate lawsuits, arguing that it violated the Constitution as interpreted by the Court in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833. More specifically, they argued (1) that the law is impermissibly vague on its face; (2) that it imposes an undue burden on a woman’s right to abortion because it is overbroad; and (3) that it imposes an undue burden on a woman’s right to abortion because it lacks a “health exception.” The lower federal courts struck down the law based on their readings of the Court’s 2000 decision in Stenberg v. Carhart.

The Supreme Court agreed to review two lower court decisions striking down the ban. In today’s opinion, the Court rejected each of the challenges to the ban.

Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law & Religious Freedom filed a friend of the Court brief in each of the two cases.