A nice accomplishment indeed, courtesy of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Federal judge blocks late-term abortion ban
By the Associated Press.

A federal judge blocked implementation of a federal ban on certain late-term abortions Wednesday, less than an hour after President Bush signed the measure into law.
“Congress and the president ignored the Supreme Court and women’s health in enacting this law,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit to block the law.
“The Nebraska court’s order will protect doctors from facing prison for providing their patients with the best medical care.”
U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf issued a temporary restraining order, citing concerns that the law did not contain an exception to the ban for preserving the health of a woman seeking the abortion.
“While … Congress found that a health exception is not needed, it is, at the very least, problematic whether I should defer to such a conclusion when the Supreme Court has found otherwise,” Kopf said.
The judge stopped short of prohibiting the new law from being enforced nationwide…
Kopf did not immediately schedule the next hearing in the case, at which time he could decide whether to issue a preliminary injunction against implementation of the law.
The judge’s ruling followed a three-hour hearing in a lawsuit brought by abortion supporters trying to block the ban. The four doctors sought to block the ban of the procedure opponents call partial-birth abortion.
In making his ruling, Kopf referred to a legal challenge from Carhart that led to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Nebraska’s partial-birth abortion ban in 2000. The high court said the Nebraska law and others like it were an “undue burden” on women’s rights.
“The Supreme Court, citing factual findings of eight different trial judges, appointed by four different presidents, and the considered opinion of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, has found a very similar law unconstitutional because it banned `partial-birth abortions’ with the requisite exception from the preservation of the health of the woman,” Kopf said…
Judge Kopf voiced his concerns at the start of the hearing. “It seems to me the law is highly suspect, if not a per se violation of the Constitution,” he said…
Kopf said he could find no record of a doctor who performs abortions in the second and third trimesters testifying before Congress on late-term abortions. “Isn’t that important if Congress was really interested in knowing about this procedure?” Kopf said.
The law also appears to have a “serious vagueness problem,” Kopf said.
Priscilla Smith, an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said that if the law is allowed to take effect “physicians across the country will risk imprisonment for providing abortion care in accordance with their best medical judgment.”

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