This from the Family Research Council's regular e-mail updates... Note especially Judge Niemeyer's dissent.
A divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld a lower court's ruling that a Virginia law banning a type of late- term abortion is unconstitutional because it lacks an exception to protect a woman's health. The majority on the three-judge panel decided this exception was necessary despite overwhelming evidence supplied that showed such precautions were unnecessary in cases covered by the Virginia law.
In addition, Virginia's law differs from a previous Nebraska ban that was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, for it covered a human child who had been born alive but was not yet separated from its mother. The two judges in the majority ignored the evidence distinguishing this case from prior cases and made their decision with no actual review - which clearly infuriated the dissenting judge.
The dissenter, Judge Paul V. Niemeyer, called out the hypocrisy in his articulate dissenting opinion: "Can we not see that our discussions and the law we make in striking down Virginia's prohibition are unfit for the laws of a people of liberty? I wonder with befuddlement, fear and sadness, how we can so joyfully celebrate the birth of a child, so zealously protect an infant and a mother who is pregnant, so reverently wonder about how human life begins, grows, and develops, and at the same time write to strike down a law to preserve a right to destroy a partially born infant. If the disconnect is explained by personal convenience, then we must reason that all morality is personal, without commonality and source. The product of such chaos is unfathomable."
