DENVER (Apr. 18) – In an affront to Colorado voters, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to uphold a federal law restricting abortion – a ban similar to one the voters of Colorado specifically rejected less than a decade ago. "With today’s decision, the Roberts Court, with President Bush’s appointees casting the decisive votes, sent the message that Congress can disregard the will of voters by enacting politically motivated legislation that endangers women’s health," said Kathryn Wittneben, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado.

"Make no mistake: Today’s decision bears the stamp of the Bush administration’s radical ideological agenda: extreme anti-choice politicians hijacked the American political system by declaring themselves medical experts, passing a law that says women’s health and sound medicine take a back seat to ideology, and relying on activist judges to impose a mandate that has been rejected by voters," Wittneben said.

Under the Supreme Court decision, the ban contains no exception for the health of a woman -- in direct conflict with more than 30 years of precedent, beginning with Roe v. Wade and and upheld in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, both of which guaranteed that a woman’s health would always be protected. Today’s decision virtually eliminates that guarantee. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her dissent to today’s opinion, "Though today's opinion does not go so far as to discard Roe or Casey, the Court, differently composed than it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation, is hardly faithful to our earlier invocations of 'the rule of law' and the 'principles of stare decisis.'"

"Today’s decision shows the importance of the votes we cast: With his appointments of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, President Bush packed our nation’s highest court with political ideologues who, with today's decision, sent the message that the fundamental American value of freedom of choice no longer matters," Wittneben said. "When an American's right to receive safe medical care is denied by the highest court in the land as it was today, that's a clear sign that the Supreme Court is heading in the wrong direction. Voters need to elect leaders who will support and defend our civil liberties and our shared American values of freedom of choice and individual privacy."

The Supreme Court issued its decision in Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, two related cases that challenged the constitutionality of the Federal Abortion Ban signed into law by President Bush in 2003. Leading doctors and medical organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which represents 90 percent of American obstetricians and gynecologists, opposed the federal ban.

After President Bush signed the ban, three federal courts blocked enforcement of the measure to protect doctors' and women's rights to perform or obtain abortions while legal challenges to the law made their way through the court system. Within a year, the ban had been declared unconstitutional by three district courts: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (Planned Parenthood v. Ashcroft, 2004); the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (National Abortion Federation v. Ashcroft, 2004); and the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska (Carhart v. Ashcroft, 2004). Following appeals of the decisions by former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, three circuit appeals courts upheld the district courts' rulings declaring the law unconstitutional: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (National Abortion Federation v. Gonzales, 2006), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (Carhart v. Gonzales, 2005); and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Planned Parenthood v. Gonzales, 2006) upheld the. Attorneys for the Bush administration appealed the decisions to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the Carhart and Planned Parenthood decisions.

NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado (NPCC) is the political action arm of the pro-choice movement in Colorado. NPCC has more than 30,000 supporters statewide and works to develop and sustain a constituency that uses the political process to guarantee every woman the right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive health choices, including preventing unintended pregnancies, bearing healthy children and choosing legal abortion.

Supreme Court Decision & Dissenting Opinion by Justice Ginsberg (PDF)