San Francisco
A federal law banning so-called partial-birth abortions was challenged this week in courts in California, New York, and Nebraska. Defending the law at the start of the New York trial, a Bush administration lawyer called the late-term abortion procedure “inhumane and gruesome,” and painful to the fetus. But opponents say the ban amounts to an unconstitutional infringement on women’s reproductive freedom. Prior to the trials, government lawyers demanded that six hospitals in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago turn over certain abortion records, which they said would help counter claims that the procedure was often necessary to protect a woman’s health. Several federal courts have blocked the release of the records, citing patient privacy.
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