Partial-birth Abortion Records to
Remain Secret, for Now

(LifeSiteNews.com) The truth of the Planned Parenthood claim that partial birth abortion is medically necessary to protect the health of the mother rests with the actual medical facts surrounding the grisly procedure in individual cases. Now that claim has, at least temporarily, fulfilled its own prophecy with the announcement by the U.S. Department of Justice to abandon its effort to obtain client records from abortionists in the San Francisco trial to defend the partial-birth abortion ban. DOJ lawyers were obliged to withdraw their subpoenas after U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled Tuesday that the records could not be introduced as evidence.

Planned Parenthood abortionists filed suit to challenge the constitutionality of the partial-birth abortion ban. The issue of what is or is not medically necessary is precisely what the Department is trying to verify and is now unable to do since knowledge of the health or circumstances surrounding each instance remains legally protected.

The six Planned Parenthood sites protected by Judge Hamilton's decision include abortuaries in western Pennsylvania, San Diego, Los Angeles, New York City, parts of Kansas and Missouri, and the Washington, D.C., metro area, locations chosen because abortionists involved in the suit are employed there or were identified as places carrying out the procedure by Planned Parenthood in court documents. Planned Parenthood has 43 other centres throughout the U.S.

In a criticism of the Department of Justice bid to acquire the records, Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. told The Associated Press that "These subpoenas were just the latest example of this administration's willingness to go to any length to restrict a woman's right to choose."

The Department is still seeking medical records for women who procured the abortions in the Lincoln, Nebraska and New York. Six hospitals in the New York case have resisted attempts by the DOJ to procure the files despite a warning by the U.S. District Judge Richard Casey that he will uphold the ban unless the medical charts are forthcoming.

Read the Associated Press coverage click here

See the original LifeSiteNews.com coverage "ACLU/Doctors Challenge Partial Birth Abortion Ban" click here

Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: March 10, 2004