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''Stenberg v. Carhart'', 530 U.S. 914 (2000), is a case heard by the Supreme Court of the United States dealing with a Nebraska law which made performing "partial-birth abortion" illegal, without regard for the health of the mother. Nebraska physicians who performed the procedure contrary to the law were subject to having their medical licenses revoked. The Court struck down the law, finding the Nebraska statute criminalizing "partial birth abortion()" violated the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution, as interpreted in ''Planned Parenthood v. Casey'' and ''Roe v. Wade''. ==History== LeRoy Carhart, a Nebraska physician who specialized in late-term abortions, brought suit against Don Stenberg, the Attorney General of Nebraska, seeking declaratory judgment that a state law banning certain forms of abortion was unconstitutional, based on the undue burden test mentioned by a dissenting opinion in ''Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health''〔''Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health'', ( 462 U.S. 416 ) (1983).〕 and by the Court in ''Planned Parenthood v. Casey''. Both a federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Carhart before the case was appealed to the Supreme Court. The Nebraska statute prohibited "partial birth abortion", which it defined as any abortion in which the physician "partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child and completing the delivery." The most common type of abortion performed is suction-aspiration abortion which consists of a vacuum tube inserted into the uterus; others consist of what is known as "D&E" (dilation and evacuation), which is usually used during the second trimester because of the increased amount of fetal material. The procedure dilates the cervix and removes some fetal material with non-vacuum instruments, and, in some cases, uses curettage inside the uterus so that fetal material can be evacuated. Dr. Carhart wanted to use a modified version of this called "D&X" (Dilation and Extraction), which, rather than commencing curettage inside the uterus, extracts part of the fetus first and then begins the process of dismemberment. Carhart stated that he wanted to perform this procedure because he believed it would be safer and would involve fewer risks for the women; it lowered the risk of leaving potentially harmful fetal tissue in the uterus, and it minimized the number of instruments physicians needed to use. Experts in fetal development provide markedly different assessments of the kind and degree of pain (if any) experienced by the fetus (''see Fetal pain''). Although in the second and third trimesters the nervous system is largely in place, the level of consciousness or awareness of the fetus is a matter of debate. Experiments aimed at measuring fetal pain have yielded results that are somewhat open to interpretation, given that measurable reactions of the fetus to stimuli may not correspond directly to an adult experience of pain. The medical and scientific questions surrounding partial-birth abortion are impacted in the public arena by political and special interest considerations, resulting in a certain degree of media hype surrounding this case. Proponents of abortion rights on the one hand and the right-to-life on the other both decry what they describe as myths regarding this procedure that have passed into mainstream American debate on the issue. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Stenberg v. Carhart」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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