Justices hear arguments on partial-birth abortions

WASHINGTON — In two hours of arguments immersed in exacting, graphic descriptions of abortion procedures, the Supreme Court seemed unlikely Wednesday to uphold a federal law that bans so-called partial-birth abortions.

But that will depend almost entirely on whether Justice Anthony Kennedy, who occupies the court's center and previously has frowned on late-term abortions, hues to the sentiments he expressed Wednesday. The court heard arguments in two cases in which lower courts struck down the 2003 law.

Kennedy appeared troubled throughout the session by the potential implications of the law. Would it leave few legal alternatives in cases in which a pregnancy threatens a woman's life? How frequently is a late-term procedure medically necessary? Would doctors be held criminally liable for performing emergency late-term abortions when they had no other choice?

Kennedy pressed both sides in the case on those questions and hinted that he thinks the federal law may be too restrictive.

If a woman in need of a life-saving, late-term abortion were to rely on a court's quick action, she might be in serious trouble, he said.

"I don't know if you could just go to a district judge and say, 'I need an order.' The judge would take — would have to take — many hours to understand that," Kennedy said.

U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, defending the law in both cases, said women and doctors who think the procedures are necessary could try to prove that to judges, before emergency situations arose.

"That's something that there is in other areas of the law," Clement said.

The cases, Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, present a number of serious legal questions.

The high court in 2000 struck down a similar ban in Nebraska because it made no provisions for women who needed late-term abortions for health reasons.

Congress adopted its own ban in 2003, after holding hearings about the procedures and concluding that they're never medically necessary.

Meanwhile, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the decisive vote in the 2000 decision, retired and was replaced by Justice Samuel Alito, who's expected to be less supportive of abortion rights.