NATIONAL ABORTION FEDERATION v. GONZALES

Docket No. 04-5201-CV.

437 F.3d 278 (2006)

NATIONAL ABORTION FEDERATION, Mark I. Evans, M.D., Carolyn Westhoff, M.D., Cassing Hammond, M.D., Marc Heller, M.D., Timothy R.B. Johnson, M.D., Stephen Chasen, M.D., and Gerson Weiss, M.D., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Alberto GONZALES, in his capacity as Attorney General of the United States, along with his officers, agents, servants, employees, and successors in office, Defendants-Appellants.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Decided: January 31, 2006.


Attorney(s) appearing for the Case

Elizabeth Wolstein, Asst. U.S. Atty., New York, NY (David N. Kelley, U.S. Atty., James L. Cott, Sean H. Lare, Sarah S. Normand, Asst. U.S. Attys., New York, NY, on the brief), for Defendants-Appellants.

A. Stephen Hut, Jr., Washington, DC (Amy Kreiger Wigmore, Kimberly A. Parker, Wilmer Cutler Pickering, Hale and Dorr LLP, Washington DC; Elisabeth Benjamin, Anna Schissel, N.Y. Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, NY; Susan Talcott Camp, Louise Melling, Julie Sternberg, Reproductive Freedom Project, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, NY; Lorie A. Chaiten, The Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU, Inc., Chicago, IL, on the brief), for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

(James Bopp, Jr., Thomas J. Marzen, Richard E. Coleson, Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom, Terre Haure, IN, for amicus curiae Horatio R. Storer Foundation, Inc., in support of Defendants-Appellants.)

(Edward L. White III, Julie Shotzbarger, Thomas More Law Center, Ann Arbor, MI, for amicus curiae Thomas More Law Center, in support of Defendants-Appellants.)

(Thomas Brejcha, Chicago, IL, Paul Benjamin Linton, Northbrook, IL, for amicus curiae Thomas More Society, Inc., in support of Defendants-Appellants.)

(Phill Kline, Kansas State Atty. General, Topeka, KS, Nikolas T. Nikas, Denise M. Burke, Mailee R. Smith, Americans United for Life, Chicago, IL, for amicus curiae Attorney General of Kansas, in support of Defendants-Appellants.)

(Steven W. Fitschen, The National Legal Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA, for amicus curiae The Nat'l. Legal Foundation, in support of Defendants-Appellants.)

(Teresa Stanton Collett, University of St. Thomas School of Law, Minneapolis, MN, for amici curiae The Christian Medical and Dental Ass'n, and The Catholic Medical Ass'n, in support of Defendants-Appellants.)

(Jay Alan Sekulow, Stuart J. Roth, Colby M. May, Walter M. Weber, Am. Ctr. for Law and Justice, Washington, DC; Vincent P. McCarthy, Ann-Louise Lohr, Kristina J. Wenberg, Am. Ctr. for Law and Justice, New Milford, CT, for amicus curiae The Am. Ctr. for Law and Justice and Various Members of Congress, in support of Defendants-Appellants.)

(James Joseph Lynch, Jr., Brad Dacus, James Griffiths, The Pacific Justice Institute, Sacramento, CA, for amicus curiae Margie Riley and Laurette Elsburry, in support of Defendants-Appellants.)

(Pamela Harris, William R. Nifong, Pammela Quinn, O'Melveny & Myers, LLP, Washington, DC; Caroline R. Fredrickson, Blake M. Cornish, Belinda L. Bulger, NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, Washington, DC, for amicus curiae NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, in support of Plaintiffs-Appellees.)

(Eliot Spitzer, NY State Atty. General, Caitlin J. Halligan, Solicitor, General, Michelle Aronowitz, Deputy Solicitor General, Lisa Landau, Asst. Atty. General, New York, NY; Richard Blumenthal, Conn. State Atty. General, Hartford, Conn; William H. Sorrell, Vermont State Atty. General, Montpelier, VT, for amici curiae The States of New York, Connecticut and Vermont, in support of Plaintiffs-Appellees.)

(Kurt G. Calia, Gregory M. Lipper, Covington & Burling, Washington, DC; Martin E. Beeler, Michael J. Naft, Stephanie Yu, Covington & Burling, New York, NY; Susan Frietsche, Stacey I. Young, Women's Law Project, Pittsburgh, PA; David S. Cohen, Women's Law Project, Philadelphia, PA, for amici curiae Ass'n of Reproductive Health Professionals, et al., in support Plaintiffs-Appellees.)

(Kenneth Pasquale, Claude Szyfer, Dina Kolker, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, LLP, New York, NY, for amicus curiae Statisticians Norman Henderson and Jeff Witmer, in support of Plaintiffs-Appellees.)

Before: WALKER, Chief Judge, NEWMAN, and STRAUB, Circuit Judges.


JON O. NEWMAN, Circuit Judge.

The issue on this appeal is whether the federal statute prohibiting an abortion method generally medically known as dilation and extraction ("D & X") and sometimes colloquially and in federal and state statutes called "partial birth abortion" is unconstitutional for lack of an exception permitting the procedure to be used to protect the health of a pregnant woman. The Government appeals from...

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