Fordham's Award To Justice Breyer Protested Because of His Abortion Votes

Fordham University Law School's scheduled award tomorrow of the Fordham-Stein Ethics Prize to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is drawing protests from New York's Cardinal Edward Egan, 1100 Fordham alumni and the Cardinal Newman Society. The AP reported yesterday that the protests stem from the fact that Breyer wrote the majority opinion in Stenberg v. Carhart, the 2000 Supreme Court case that invalidated Nebraska's "partial-birth abortion" law. He also dissented in the 2007 case of Gonzales v. Carhart, which upheld the federal partial-birth abortion statute. AP says that six other justices have previously won the award, five of whom have voted for abortion rights. There were no protests in those cases. [Thanks to Scott Mange for the lead.]