Justices decline to rehear abortion case

Posted: 10/11/06

Justices decline to rehear abortion case

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)—The Supreme Court declined Oct. 10 to reconsider their 1973 decision in Doe v. Bolton, the lesser-known companion case to the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in all 50 states.

The Doe v. Bolton decision, which the court handed down the same day as its more famous sibling, loosened legal restrictions of medical procedures used in abortions.

The justices declined, without comment or recorded dissent, to hear Cano v. Baker. Sandra Cano, whose case was filed under the name “Mary Roe” to protect the then-22-year-old’s identity, had asked for a reconsideration of the decision. Her lawyers requested the action under a federal court rule that allows such re-evaluation of past decisions if changing circumstances have rendered them obsolete or unjust.

Cano has reportedly said an activist attorney pressured her into becoming the plaintiff in the abortion case.

Legal papers her attorneys filed in the case said advances in medical technology since the 33-year-old decisions called for such reconsideration. They said the justices had “frozen abortion law based on obsolete 1973 assumptions and prevented the normal regulation of the practice of medicine.”

Apparently, the high court disagreed.

Last year, the court rejected a similar attempt to reconsider the Roe v. Wade decision. Norma McCorvey—on whose behalf that case was filed under the pseudonym “Jane Roe”—had asked the justices to reconsider that case. In the years since the decision, McCorvey has embraced evangelical Christianity and now describes herself, according to her website, as “100 percent pro-life.”

On Nov. 8, the court is scheduled to hear a major case involving a federal ban on “partial-birth abortion.” In 2000, the court struck down a similar law banning such procedures in Nebraska.

But the court’s shifting make-up with regard to abortion rights since that decision leaves the federal law’s fate questionable. Earlier this year, Justice Samuel Alito succeeded retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. While O’Connor generally voted in support of abortion rights, most court observers expect Alito to be more suspicious of the constitutionality of those rights.