US appeals court rejects Arkansas' 12-week abortion ban based on fetal heartbeat

[Paladin]

Oh, just dammit.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal appeals court struck down one of the nation's toughest abortion restrictions on Wednesday, ruling that women would be unconstitutionally burdened by an Arkansas law that bans abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy if a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with doctors who challenged the law, ruling that abortion restrictions must be based on a fetus' ability to live outside the womb, not the presence of a fetal heartbeat that can be detected weeks earlier. The court said that standard was established by previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

The ruling upholds a decision of a federal judge in Arkansas who struck down the 2013 law before it could take effect, shortly after legislators approved the change. But the federal judge left in place other parts of the law that required doctors to tell women if a fetal heartbeat was present; the appeals court also kept those elements in place.

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge's office was reviewing the decision "and will evaluate how to proceed," office spokesman Judd Deere said Wednesday afternoon.

The ruling wasn't a surprise to Rita Sklar, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, which represented the two doctors challenging the law. She said the case was a waste of taxpayer time, and that the decision leaves medical decisions to doctors and their patients, rather than politicians.

"We were kind of surprised it took as long as it did, frankly," Sklar said. "From our point of view it was a pretty simple case."

http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2015/05/27/federal-appeals-court-rejects-arkansas-12-week-abortion-ban

Damn straight it's a "simple case", Sklar. The presence of a heartbeat shows the presence of life.

MILWAUKEE (WISN/CNN) - A medical examiner's team transporting a 46-year-old man from his home found he wasn't dead when he began moving.

[snip]

They returned, found a heartbeat and quickly got the man to the hospital, where he was placed in intensive care.

Man pronounced dead comes back to life http://www.kcbd.com/story/29142835/man-pronounced-dead-comes-back-to-life

[mountaineer]

Meanwhile, in West Virginia:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Abortions after 20 weeks into a pregnancy, in most cases, are now illegal in West Virginia. The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act took effect on Tuesday, making the Mountain State one of nearly a dozen states with such a ban.

“I’m proud of our folks here in the state for passing this legislation because I think the people of the state want it,” Dr. Wanda Franz, president of West Virginians for Life, one of the leading supporters of the legislation, said on Wednesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”

“This is very important legislation and a new step nationally for us in the pro-life movement.”

But Margaret Chapman Pomponio, executive director of West Virginia Free, a reproductive health, rights and justice organization, called it a “sad” day.

“It’s beyond politics. This is about healthcare for pregnant women. It’s a mean-spirited bill that is really going to hurt providers who bring life into this world and women who want nothing more than to be mothers,” she said of the legislation that deals with the kinds of abortions that are rare in West Virginia.

Six were performed in 2011, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new law found wide support within the Legislature where supporters of it argued the state has a duty to protect an unborn child or fetus once that unborn child or fetus can feel pain, a time that, they argued, was at 20 weeks.

“The leading medical experts in this country and this state absolutely refute claims of fetal pain at 20 weeks,” Chapman Pomponio maintained. “It does seem that the ultimate goal is to test viability, to challenge Roe (v. Wade) and, when we’ve seen these bills be challenged in the courts, they have been blocked.”

Franz said the U.S. Supreme Court should ultimately take up the issue of fetal pain.

“I believe that the case can be made. I think that the science is there and I think that the compassion is there. People do not want these babies suffering,” she said.

“As long as they thought that we just had a bunch of tissue that was being removed, like a bad tooth, then people didn’t mind the idea of abortion,” Franz said. “But, if you’re thinking of real, human, living, sentient beings who feel pain the way we do, I don’t think the American public wants those children slaughtered that way.”

Earlier this year, both the state Senate and state House of Delegates voted to override Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s 2nd veto of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act in as many years. It was the first successful override of a governor’s veto in West Virginia since 1987.

Tomblin had said he believed banning abortions after 20 weeks was unconstitutional, though state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has promised to defend the law — if it’s challenged in court.

WV Metro News