Gonzales v. Carhart

Gonzales v. Carhart was a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. This federal law banned a specific late-term abortion procedure, often referred to as "partial-birth abortion" by opponents, though this term is not used by the medical profession. The Court ruled 5-4 that the ban did not place an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion. The term "partial-birth abortion" was coined by the National Right to Life Committee in 1995 and refers to a procedure where a living fetus is delivered until its head is outside the mother's body, or its trunk past the navel, for the purpose of performing an act that kills the fetus. This procedure accounted for a very small percentage of abortions performed in 2000.12