Stuart Taylor

About the author: Stuart Taylor is a senior writer for the National Journal, a weekly publication on politics, policy, and government.

In June 2000, the Supreme Court struck down a Nebraska ban on partial-birth abortions. According to Nebraska's statute, "Partialbirth abortion means an abortion procedure in which the person performing the abortion partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child and completing the delivery." Many pro-life advocates argue that partial-birth abortion laws would outlaw a rare and gruesome abortion procedure that takes place after the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy. However, the laws are so vaguely worded that abortions in any stage of pregnancy could be prohibited. Moreover, most partial-birth abortion laws arbitrarily distinguish between whether an aborted fetus is killed in the womb (acceptable) or...