Federal Judge Allows San Francisco To Join Challenge to Federal ‘Partial-Birth’ Abortion Ban

U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton on Wednesday allowed the city of San Francisco to join abortion-rights supporters in a lawsuit challenging a federal law that would ban so-called "partial-birth" abortion, the San Francisco Chronicle reports (Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle, 1/8). President Bush last November signed the bill (S 3) banning the procedure. On behalf of the San Francisco Department of Public Health and its employees, city attorney Dennis Herrera on Nov. 25 filed a motion in U.S. District Court requesting to join a lawsuit filed by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America to challenge the recently signed federal ban. San Francisco is the first local government nationwide to take legal action to oppose the law (California Healthline, 11/26). Hamilton and federal judges in Nebraska and New York issued restraining orders that bar enforcement of the law, and all three judges have scheduled trials, to begin March 29, on whether the law violates standards set by the U.S. Supreme Court because it does not include an exception for abortions needed to protect a woman's health (San Francisco Chronicle, 1/8).