case breif summary on the following GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL v. CARHART ET AL., 550 U.S. 124 (2007) United States Supreme Court GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL v. CARHART ET AL.(2007) No. 05-380 Argued: November 08, 2006Decided: April 18, 2007 Following this Court's Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U. S. 914, decision that Nebraska's "partial birth abortion" statute violated the Federal Constitution, as interpreted in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, and Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, Congress passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (Act) to proscribe a particular method of ending fetal life in the later stages of pregnancy. The Act does not regulate the most common abortion procedures used in the first trimester of pregnancy, when the vast majority of abortions take place. In the usual second-trimester procedure, "dilation and evacuation" (D&E), the doctor dilates the cervix and then inserts surgical instruments into the uterus and maneuvers them to grab the fetus and pull it back through the cervix and vagina. The fetus is usually ripped apart as it is removed, and the doctor may take 10 to 15 passes to remove it in its entirety. The procedure that prompted the federal Act and various state statutes, including Nebraska's, is a variation of the standard D&E, and is herein referred to as "intact D&E." The main difference between the two procedures is that in intact D&E a doctor extracts the fetus intact or largely intact with only a few pa