Washington D.C., May 23, 2006 / 22:00 pm
Joined by other church bodies, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling which struck down the federal ban on partial-birth abortion.
The amici curiae brief was filed May 19 in the case of Alberto R. Gonzales, Attorney General, v. Leroy Carhart, et. al.
The brief argued that Stenberg v. Carhart does not control the outcome for the present case. In Stenberg v. Carhart, which was decided in 2000, the Supreme Court struck down a Nebraska statute prohibiting partial-birth abortions.
“First, federal law bans a different procedure,” says the brief. “Unlike the Nebraska law invalidated in Stenberg, the federal ban protects the life of an unborn child that is substantially outside his or her mother’s body at specified anatomical points.