Choice

Unfortunately, not all of CWL’s amicus efforts have been successful. In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a facial constitutional challenge to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. In that case, Gonzales v. Carhart, 127 S. Ct. 1610 (2007), the Supreme Court considered decisions from both the Eighth and Ninth Circuits striking down the Act as unconstitutional. CWL joined the amicus brief filed by the National Women’s Law Center, which argued that the Act may deny women to a safe abortion, impermissibly imposes a specific moral viewpoint on all women, and unconstitutionally violates women’s bodily integrity.

The Supreme Court rejected these arguments (and those of the many other amicus briefs) and instead held that the Act was not void for vagueness, and that the Act did not impose an undue burden on a woman’s right to an abortion based on overbreadth or the lack of a health exception. This decision is a blow to every woman’s right to control her own body, and serves as a stark reminder of the roadblocks still in the way of full gender equality – and spurs CWL to redouble its efforts to overcome those obstacles.