GIVES "FUNDEMENTALIST GERMAN" A WHOLE DIFFERENT MEANING

SPLIT BY ABORTION: The Front Lines of the Religious War in God's Own Country (Frank Hornig, Der Spiegel, 3/13/06)

South Dakota has passed the most restrictive abortion law in the United States. But much more is at stake. The rural state has become only the most recent front line in an ongoing religious war in the US.

Phillips Avenue in Sioux Falls, South Dakota -- located in the heart of the flat Midwestern prairie -- is a sleepy thoroughfare. There are a few businesses along the street, a couple of restaurants, and a souvenir shop which struggles to attract customers.

But last Thursday, this dreary provincial boulevard became the dividing line separating two irreconcilable camps in the city -- and it became the most recent front line in an ongoing war that bisects the entire nation. For about an hour, opposing groups of demonstrators swore at one another across the street, launching a new round in an old dispute that has long since expanded into a cultural battle -- a bitter fight that has raged for decades between conservatives and liberals, devout Christians and women's rights groups.

Last Monday, South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds, a Republican, approved a radical new law that outlaws abortion under virtually all circumstances. Even rape and incest victims are forbidden from getting abortions under the new law....

But evil, it seems, is in the majority these days. Even in South Dakota, where about 300 protestors, mainly young women wearing pink T-shirts, are vocally defending the right to abortion. The signs they're carrying convey their message loud and clear: "My body -- my choice" and "Save Roe."

Father Morgan smiles mildly, seemingly confident of victory. "We're writing history here," he says. In 25 years, he adds, Americans will liken abortion "to the greatest crimes of mankind, crimes like slavery and the Holocaust."

Germany, perhaps sensitive to the Holocaust argument, has a much more restrictive abortion law than we do:Abortion In Germany (Answers.com)

In 1975, West German state laws permitting some abortions were struck down by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany as inconsistent with the human rights guarantees of the constitution. It held that the unborn have a right to life, that abortion is "an act of killing", and that the unborn child deserves legal protection throughout its development.

Nevertheless, in 1976, West Germany legalized abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy for reasons of medical necessity, sexual crimes or serious social or emotional distress, if approved by two doctors, and subject to counseling and a three-day waiting period. The legal requirements were extremely strict, and often led women to seek abortions elsewhere, particularly in the Netherlands. In 1989, a Bavarian doctor was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and 137 of his patients were fined for failing to meet the certification requirements.

The two laws had to be reconciled after reunification. A new law was passed by the Bundestag in 1992, permitting first-trimester abortions on demand, subject to counselling and a three-day waiting period. The law was quickly challenged in court by a number of individuals - including Chancellor Helmut Kohl - and the State of Bavaria. The Federal Constitutional Court issued a decision a year later maintaining its earlier decision that the constitution protected the fetus from the moment of conception, but stated that abortions during the first trimester should not be subject to punishment, assuming that the mother had submitted to counselling aimed at changing her mind. Abortions are not covered by public health insurance except for women with low income.

Somehow, Justice Breyer never mentions that international law precedent.

Posted by David Cohen at March 15, 2006 9:09 PM