Supreme Court Upholds Late-Term Abortion Ban

The Supreme Court has handed down what is being called one of the biggest setbacks for the abortion rights movement in years. On Wednesday, the court voted five to four to uphold a ban on late-term abortion. The so-called Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was signed into law in 2003 but had been held up by rulings from lower courts. The Supreme Court ruling marks the first time justices have agreed that a specific abortion procedure can be banned. It's also first time since Roe v. Wade that justices approved an abortion restriction that does not contain an exception for the health of the woman.

In her dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, called the decision "alarming" and "irrational." She said: "[The ruling] tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists." She later continues: "[It] cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court - and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives."

* Louise Melling, director of the Reproductive Freedom Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. As an attorney she has appeared in federal and state courts around the country to challenge laws that restrict reproductive rights.

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