------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 10, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
EDITORIAL: A VICTORY FOR WOMEN
The women's movement has won a major victory.
A federal judge in San Francisco, Phyllis J. Hamilton, has ruled that the law banning second trimester abortions is unconstitutional. The law, passed last November by an overwhelmingly male Congress, had been carefully crafted to contain ambiguous language that could be used to whittle away even further at abortion rights. One thing was clear, however. It banned this type of abortion even when the woman's health was endangered by the fetus. The only exception allowed was when continuing the pregnancy was a definite threat to her life.
Judge Hamilton, who was appointed during the Clinton administration, took strong exception to the sensational language used in the bill and its title. "The term 'partial-birth abortion,'" she wrote, "is neither recognized in the medical literature nor used by physicians who routinely perform second trimester abortions."
The lawyer who took the case to court for Planned Parenthood called the decision "an enormous victory."
"It reaffirms that the government has no role in this very intimate decision between the woman and her physician," attorney Beth Parker added. "Today's decision also gives physicians the comfort that they don't have to be concerned that the procedures performed can expose them to two years in prison for violating the act."
This case can now be cited as a precedent in other federal districts.
There will be much discussion in the progressive movement about the significance of this ruling. Some will see it as confirmation that you need to get Democrats in office to solve the accumulating social problems--even though the bill had had support from both capitalist parties.
But the elephant in the room that few media accounts seem to mention is the huge March for Women's Lives that took place in Washington on April 25. Over a million people flooded the Mall demanding women's right to choose. Speaker after speaker talked movingly about how, before Roe v. Wade, illegal abortions had killed or maimed their grandmothers, their mothers, their friends.
Particularly notable was the large number of very young women who brought their energy to the demonstration.
The law does not come from "on high." It reflects the relations of classes and other social groupings. Laws are constantly changing--and too often it's because the rich and powerful have armies of lobbyists and lawyers at their disposal to write and push through new legislation.
But when a mass movement really takes hold, it can penetrate the layers of conservatism incorporated in government bodies and change the relation of forces. That's what happened on April 25, and this court ruling was a not-very-delayed reaction to it.
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