Law professor named
interim chancellor
CHANCELLOR from page 1
Edwards said Smith’s appoint
ment was a good choice.
“I think this is an extremely
good appointment,” Edwards said.
“The whole campus has Professor
Perlman to thank for stepping up
into this position.”
Smith said during Perlman’s
tenure as dean of the law college, he
was a “visionary” and “helped
guide the university through some
of its most trying and divisive issues
in recent years.”
A native ofYork, Perlman joined
the faculty of the law college in
1967.
He served as a faculty member
of the University of Virginia Law
School from 1975 to 1^83.
He then came back to Nebraska
to serve as the dean of the law
school. He resigned from the posi
tion in 1998 and returned to teach
ing full-time.
MORE exams"
Tensions rise as case nears
ABORTION from page 1
available, he said, the law does not
place an undue burden on a woman’s
right to choose to have an abortion.
Contrary to what the law’s oppo
nents have said, the law bans only the
abortion procedure known as “intact
dilation and extraction,” or “D&X,”
Stenberg said.
In that procedure, the fetus’s
body up to die head is delivered into
the birth canal. The doctor uses scis
sors to create an opening in the
fetus’s skull, then inserts a suction
catheter and sucks the fetus’s brains
out of its skull.
“It is simply a practice bordering
on infanticide, a barbaric practice
that has no place in a civilized socie
ty,” he said.
Both the American Medical
Association and the procedure’s
developer, Dr. Martin Haskell, have
said the procedure is never medically
necessary, Stenberg said.
“Our argument is simply that safe
forms of abortion remain available to
women,” he said.
Stenberg said he agrees with
legal experts that the two justices
who may provide critical swing votes
are Sandra Day O’Connor and
Anthony Kennedy. If those two
joined Chief Justice William
Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and
Clarence Thomas - all considered
anti-abortion justices - Stenberg
would have the five votes needed to
win the case.
Stenberg said he has prepared a
list of 60 to 70 questions the justices
might ask during his half-hour
appearance before the court. Those
questions likely will focus on
whether the law bans only D&X and
whether it places an undue burden on
the right of women to choose to have
an abortion, he said.
In other states where a ban on
partial-birth abortions is being
___■ S'. * ’ ■
” This is a very, very well-contrived
plan to try to eliminate abortion as an
option for American women.”
LeRoy Carhart
Bellevue doctor
enforced, the total number of abor
tions performed has either stayed
constant or risen, he said. Therefore,
he said, the availability of abortion in
Nebraska is unlikely to subside if the
law is upheld.
“The state has a very substantial
interest in drawing a bright line
between abortion and infanticide,”
he said.
In a telephone conference call,
Carhart denounced the law as a polit
ical ploy designed to “eviscerate” a
woman’s right to choose to have an
abortion as provided by the Supreme
Court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling.
“I think it’s sad because most
people in the United States have been
duped by the religious right,” he said.
“This is about taking away the rights
of women to choose to have an abor
tion. This is meant to polarize the
electorate to get votes in November.
But I think it’s kind of wrong to use
women as leverage to buy votes.”
Carhart said the law would pro
hibit more than the D&X procedure.
It would also ban the procedure
known as “dilation and evacuation,”
or “D&E,” in which the fetus is dis
membered while still in the womb,
he said.
The law’s wording, which pro
hibits doctors from delivering into
the womb a living unborn child, “or a
substantial portion thereof,” for the
purpose of conducting an abortion,
would ban “98 percent” of abortion
procedures, Carhart said.
“The description is very vague,
intentionally vague and deceptive,”
he said.
“There is no way to do an abor
tion at three weeks, 10 weeks or 12
weeks of gestation without doing
exactly that.”
Carhart stopped short on
Monday of saying the D&X proce
dure is occasionally medically nec
essary to preserve the life or health of
a mother. But he said the law elimi
nates abortion options for a surgeon
on the basis of political, rather than
medical, standards.
Any time doctors can reduce the
number of entries into a woman’s
cervix, they reduce the chances of
infection or perforation, he said.
If Nebraska’s law is upheld,
Carhart said Monday, he will leave
the state and set up an abortion prac
tice elsewhere.
In the meantime, given the strong
feelings against partial-birth abor
tion, he acknowledged he is con
cerned for his safety.
“Yeah, I’m concerned, but I think
this is like terrorism at any other
time,” he said. “If the terrorists cause
you to not do what you think is right,
then they’ve won.”
Carhart said the Nebraska law
was part of a nationwide effort to
chip away at abortion rights.
“This is a very, very well-con
trived plan to try to eliminate abor
tion as an option for American
women,” he said.
The court’s ruling is expected by
June.
l wwfcrtflgr”
\ ^
I. > r
1 ahdpkhi
HHHftnw
-WevwgotK
0OVWM
THURSDAY, APRIL 27TH mumurntm *wi-iak
4. \ *. ‘ ** *• «*
RB OVEAVATi im POOD! STUDY vm US urrn. too MDV2N PRIZE
FR3DAI.4BIL 28TH flMflDPH ]
MB NOVB MBBB
I!
■“ .
