Court upholds ban on abortion method

THE Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure yesterday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and US President George W Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act “have not demonstrated that the act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases”, Justice Athony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.