The Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals criticized the Supreme Court’s abortion decisions, calling them an “aberration of constitutional law.” While disagreeing with the Supreme Court, the court of appeals acknowledged it is not the Supreme Court, and thus affirmed the lower court's decision that found Alabama's law prohibiting dismemberment abortions of live unborn babies, known as Dilation and Extraction (D&E), violates the High Court’s decisions.  The three-judge panel's decision reflects its reluctance to overturn the law, but its allegiance to its role as an intermediate appellate court under the authority of the Supreme Court’s previous decisions.

In his special concurrence, Judge Dubina opined:

“I write separately to agree on record with Justice Thomas’s concurring opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124, 168-69, 127 S. Ct. 1610, 1639-40 (2007) (Thomas, J., concurring), with whom then Justice Scalia also joined. Specifically, Justice Thomas wrote, ‘I write separately to reiterate my view that the Court’s abortion jurisprudence, including Casey [Planned Parenthood of Se. Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 112 S. Ct. 2791 (1992)] and Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 93 S. Ct. 705 (1973), has no basis in the Constitution.’ Id. at 169, 127 S. Ct. at 1639. The problem I have, as noted in the Chief Judge’s opinion, is that I am not on the Supreme Court, and as a federal appellate judge, I am bound by my oath to follow all of the Supreme Court’s precedents, whether I agree with them or not.”

In West Alabama Women’s Center v. Thomas Miller, Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief on behalf of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists and American College of Pediatricians, defending the Alabama law that prohibits dismemberment abortions of live unborn babies based on the medical evidence of their ability to feel intense pain.

The opinion refers to Liberty Counsel’s brief regarding the fact that unborn babies feel pain as early as eight weeks gestation.

The court used graphic language to describe the brutal abortion procedure:

“This case involves a method of abortion that is clinically referred to as Dilation and Evacuation (D & E). Or dismemberment abortion, as the State less clinically calls it. That name is more accurate because the method involves tearing apart and extracting piece-by-piece from the uterus what was until then a living unborn child. This is usually done during the 15- to 18-week stage of development, at which time the unborn child’s heart is already beating.”

“Under the Act, the one performing the abortion is required to kill the unborn child before ripping apart its body during the extraction. [citation omitted] Killing an unborn child and then dismembering it is permitted; killing an unborn child by dismembering it is not. The parties agree that for these purposes an unborn child is alive while its heart is beating, which usually begins around six weeks. See How Your Fetus Grows During Pregnancy, Am. Coll. of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (April 2018).”

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