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 WASHINGTON (AP) - Legal efforts to further restrict access to abortion will depend, in the short term, on whether Justice Anthony Kennedy is willing to go along.
The majority opinion he wrote upholding the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act offers hope both for those who think the impact of Wednesday's decision will be limited and for those who think it will be profound.
While Kennedy adopted some language favored by abortion opponents — "life of the unborn," "abortion doctor," "respect for life" — he also carefully distinguished the controversial procedure that was the focus of the Supreme Court case from a more common abortion method used after 12 weeks of pregnancy. The latter was unaffected by the ruling.
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