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Newbie Influence in Kennedy Abortion Opinion

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Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s concern for medical risks to women displayed in oral arguments last year were missing from his majority opinion last week upholding a ban on so-called partial birth abortions, according to an opinion piece in the New York Times.

The opinion revives an undue-burden test espoused by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. when he was a federal appeals judge, the article says. In that opinion, Alito said a requirement that women notify their husbands of a planned abortion was not an undue burden because it would hurt only a small number of women.

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