Affirming women's rights

Hartford Courant: Earlier this spring, well over a half-million Americans rallied on the National Mall in Washington to reaffirm their support for abortion rights. It had been years since activists had felt such a compelling need to raise their voices in unison.
But with reproductive rights under assault from the Bush administration, Congress and state legislatures across the country, there's a greater urgency for supporters to step to the fore to ensure that women don't return to the days of back-alley abortions.
Last week, a federal judge in San Francisco temporarily put a stop to the infringement on a woman's right to choose by striking down a federal law that banned a procedure that backers of the law call partial-birth abortion.
The 2003 law outlawed a procedure known as intact dilation and extraction. The ban made no exception for the health and well-being of the mother.
Inhumane
In arguing to uphold the law, government attorneys said the procedure is inhumane and never medically necessary. Adversaries saw the law as an erosion of a woman's right to choose as established by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade.
Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton supported the latter view. In declaring the new law unconstitutional, she said it placed an undue burden on women seeking abortions, was impermissibly vague and didn't do enough to protect the mother's health.
Two other legal challenges of the law are pending in federal courts in Nebraska and New York, practically guaranteeing that the issue will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.
In vowing to continue the prohibition battle, White House spokesman Scott McClellan, said, "The president is committed to building a culture of life in America." That culture of life must include respect for the lives and judgment of women.