Justices to Review Federal Ban on Disputed Abortion Method
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
Published: February 22, 2006

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 — The Supreme Court, at full strength with Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. on the bench for the first time, opened the next chapter in its long-running confrontation with abortion on Tuesday by agreeing to decide whether the first federal ban on a method of abortion is constitutional.

The court accepted, for argument next fall, the Bush administration's appeal of a decision invalidating the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The law makes it a crime for a doctor to perform an abortion during which a part of the fetus, either the "entire fetal head" or "any part of the fetal trunk past the navel," is outside the woman's uterus at the time the fetus is killed.

While supporters of the law maintain that this technique is used only late in pregnancy, and that the law therefore does not present an obstacle to most abortions, abortion-rights advocates say the statute's description applies to procedures used to terminate pregnancies as early as 12 or 13 weeks. The rest