U.S. Drops Bid for Records in Abortion Case

Government lawyers Monday dropped their effort to obtain abortion records from a New York hospital, telling the judge they did not want to delay a ruling on the constitutionality of a new law banning some abortion procedures.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Sheila M. Gowan said there was “an important and substantial” public interest in a prompt ruling on the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

Judge Richard C. Casey had suspended the conclusion of a trial to decide whether the law could be enforced because he said information from the patient records would be helpful to the case. He found New York-Presbyterian Hospital in contempt for not turning over the records and fined it $500.

Gowan said government lawyers had decided to withdraw the hospital’s subpoena.

That move will result in a lifting of the contempt order and the dropping of an appeal filed by the hospital to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

In March, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago rejected the government’s effort to obtain medical records from Northwestern Memorial Hospital for use in the New York case.

Casey and U.S. judges in Lincoln, Neb., and San Francisco have been weighing the constitutionality of the law simultaneously.