Appeals court wants Court to take new look at abortion

[Draggingtree]

Scotus: Appeals court wants Court to take new look at abortion

By Lyle Denniston on Jul 23, 2015 at 8:48 pm

A federal appeals court, arguing that the Supreme Court’s abortion rights rulings leave too little room for states to limit the procedure to protect fetal life, has urged the Justices to reconsider a basic idea behind Roe v. Wade. The idea, never explicitly abandoned by the Court, is that states are forbidden to ban abortions before a fetus is capable of living outside the woman’s body.

 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in a new ruling on Wednesday involving the nation’s most restrictive abortion control law, argued that the so-called “fetal viability” approach has become “unsatisfactory” because it has not kept pace with changes in fetal medicine. Although the North Dakota law at issued was struck down, the three-judge panel made it clear it ruled that way because the Court had given it no choice, but that it was troubled at having to do so. State legislatures, not courts, should be making decisions about the state of medical science, it said.