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The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Gonzales v. Carhart, examining the federal Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003. The lower courts struck down the PBAA under Stenberg v. Carhart, a 2000 decision in which SCOTUS struck down Nebraska's partial-birth abortion law. O'Connor was the swing vote in Stenberg, and Alito is likely to swing the other way. A good thing: Stenberg is preposterous and should be overturned.

There is a slight wrinkle: the PBAA, unlike the Nebraska law, is constitutionally questionable, to say the least, on federalism grounds (as Glenn Reynolds notes). The lower courts didn't consider the federalism question, though, so the Supreme Court probably won't either.

topics:
Abortion, Constitution, Law, Supreme Court