A lawsuit has been filed to stop a new bill banning partial-birth abortions in the state of Utah. This, combined with other recent proceedings regarding partial-birth abortions, has once again thrown fuel on the ever-burning fire of the abortion debate.

A federal lawsuit has been filed to temporarily stop enforcement of a recent ban on partial-birth abortions in Utah. The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court on Monday, contends that the law contains the same constitutional flaws as a statute that was struck down in Nebraska recently.

The new ban would only allow the procedure to be performed in situations where it is necessary to save the mother's life, but not to protect her health. The law defines the procedure as a living fetus being partially extracted from the body and then killed.

The lawsuit, brought by the Utah Women's Clinic and the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, will put the state ban on hold for 10 days. U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell signed the restraining order.

Karrie Galloway, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Utah, told the Associated Press that legislation should have waited.

"We are asking for an injunction until three challenges to a mirror federal ban make it through the courts," Galloway said. "We can't let a law that's enjoined nationally go into effect here. There would be no need for this legal action if legislators and the governor had waited for the federal cases to be decided."

According to the Salt Lake City Tribune, the suit did not surprise Assistant Attorney General Jerrold Jensen.

"We anticipated this all along," Jensen said. He also told the paper that the Attorney General's office had worked out a plan to "hold the case in abeyance" until the challenges to the federal ban have been resolved.

Similarly, Sen. Curtis R. Bramble, R-Provo, expected the suit to be filed, according to the BYU NewsNet website.

"There always is [a lawsuit] against anything that doesn't allow complete choice," Bramble said. "We amended the bill to make certain the existing law stays in place. Any attempt to restrict abortion provisions, Planned Parenthood and the pro-abortion advocates had threatened to sure. Their agenda is open access to abortions on demand."

Bramble also said that if the federal ban holds up despite the lawsuits, "you'd expect our bill to be held up equally."

Linda Rosenthal, one attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, feels that the new ban will likely be declared unconstitutional, and believes that the bill's supporters have another agenda.

"These laws are really a stealth effort to ban the most common second-trimester abortions. They are not about banning any one single procedure," Rosenthal told the Tribune. "It's really an effort to ban all abortions altogether. The federal law and the Utah law suffer from the same unconstitutional defects that the Supreme Court said were unconstitutional."

The Center for Reproductive Rights has been in conflict with the state of Utah on at least one previous occasion. The center filed suit against Utah legislation that conflicted with the landmark case Roe V. Wade, and won the suit on an appeal in 1991.

On November 5 of last year, President Bush signed the "Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003" into law. Congress had approved the legislation in early October, after a seven-year political struggle. In what is a somewhat unusual legal challenge, a suit had already been filed to block the bill before it was officially enacted with the President's signature. Priscilla Smith, an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, explained the move to the AP.

"We [wanted] the judge to be in a position to issue an order as soon as the bill [was] signed," said Smith.

There were actually two separate suits filed with the goal of blocking the bill: the aforementioned filed on behalf of the CRR in Nebraska, the other for the American Civil Liberties Union in New York. The Nebraska suit specifies that the legislation makes no exception for cases where continued pregnancy would compromise the health of the mother. The bill's supporters claim that it applies only to a procedure carried out late in a pregnancy that never necessarily protects the mother's health.

According to the ACLU website, "'partial-birth abortion' bans prohibit an array of safe and common abortion procedures performed throughout pregnancy."

At the signing of the bill last November, President Bush's statement to the AP directly conflicted with the ACLU's take.

"As the former Surgeon General has pointed out, the majority of partial birth abortions are not required by medical emergency," Bush said. "As Congress has found, the practice is widely regarded within the medical profession as unnecessary, not only cruel to the child, but harmful to the mother, and a violation of medical ethics."

Shortly after President Bush signed the new federal law, U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Kopf for the District of Nebraska issued a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the abortion ban. Within a day, two additional federal judges-Richard Casey in Manhattan and Phyllis Hamilton in San Francisco-passed similar orders.

Prior to the enactment of this bill, attempts to ban a specific abortion procedure had been denied. In the 1999 case Stenberg v. Carhart, the Supreme Court disallowed a similar law in Nebraska in a close decision, pointing out there were no exceptions for the mother's health.

"Partial-birth abortion" is a non-medical term that refers to a procedure called intrauterine cranial decompression, or the dilation & extraction method. The procedure is usually performed during the fifth month of pregnancy. The fetus is partially extracted through the birth canal feet first, and the head is then "decompressed" by removal of brain tissue, allowing for full extraction.

One Westchester woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, underwent the procedure in question several years prior to the federal ban.

"The doctor told me there was no way my baby would live more than a few days," the woman said. "As if this wasn't bad enough, they told me I could have serious complications if I didn't have an abortion, which I didn't even think I could do since I was so far along. I've always said I would never have [an abortion,] but after two other doctors told me the same thing, I started to realize I didn't have a choice here. The procedure may have very well saved my life, and seeing all this in the news recently, I can't understand how they can even consider a law without exceptions for cases like mine."

Warren M. Hearn, a Colorado doctor who provides abortion services in a practice that has "increasingly specialized in helping women terminate desired pregnancies complicated by fetal disorders or medical issues," also expressed similar surprise at the bill's signing.

In a letter to the editor that appeared in the December 2, 2003 edition of the New York Times, Hern wrote, "I am appalled by what our nation's leaders are doing about this extremely difficult and complicated matter. It does usually seem that the knowledge and opinions of the doctors and the patients are not significant determinants in the formulation of this public policy."

When abortion opponents brought this specific procedure to public attention in 1995, the focus in the ongoing debate shifted from the idea of choice to the details of the abortion procedure itself. Pro-life supporters feel this is a victory in itself.

According to another New York Times article titled "The War Over Abortion Moves to a Smaller Stage" that appeared in the October 26, 2003 edition, Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania is the chief sponsor of the ban.

"What partial birth did was give humanity to the choice," Santorum told the Times. "Anytime you are successful in pointing out to the American public what an abortion is, it's a success."

President Bush expressed a similar idea at last year's signing.

"The best case against partial birth abortion is a simple description of what happens and to whom it happens. It involves the partial delivery of a live boy or girl, and a sudden, violent end of that life," Bush said.