The Journal Times from Racine, Wisconsin • 2

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 2004 TOE JOURNAL TIMES ins Judge: Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional County officials and a citizens' task force were investigating plans to revamp the county's criminal justice system, including a proposal to expand the Racine County Jail. federal legislation limiting a woman's right to choose an abortion. Abortion rights activists said it ran counter to three decades of Supreme Court precedent. It banned a procedure that is known to doctors as Intact dilation and extraction, but is called "partial-birth BY DAVID KRAVETS Associated Prma SAN FRANCISCO In a ruling with coast-to-coast effect, a federal Judge declared the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional Tuesday, saying it infringes on a woman's right to choose. U.S.

District Judge Phyllis Hamilton's ruling came in one of three lawsuits challenging the legislation President Bush signed last year. She agreed with abortion rights activists that a woman right choose is paramount, and that it is therefore irrelevant" whether a fetus suffers pain, as abortion foes contend. The act poses an undue burden on a woman's right to choose an abortion," the judge wrote The challenge was brought by to Hie act burden on a right to abortion." U.S. DISTRICT PHYLLIS In Tuesday's ruling I Hamilton poses an undue woman's choose an JUDGE HAMILTON, mm Sheriff Bob Carlson recommended a $1 7 million proposal to expand the jail last week, but also offered alternative plans for as little as $7 million. Carlson's recommendation would alleviate crowding, make the jail last for the next 15 years and help the county avoid potential lawsuits over mistreatment of inmates.

More rain is forecast for this week, while flood warnings continue for Racine and Kenosha counties. Area farmers are particularly hard hit, because the heavy rains are washing away hundreds of tons of topsoil and many of the seeds they had planted. The unit remains on alert, but has not been deployed. Meanwhile, the Sturtevant-based 961st Engineers unit has returned home after being deployed to Colorado, and then Iraq, in April 2003. Milwaukee's $18 million highspeed ferry made its first voyage Tuesday.

The ferry, which sinks plans for a similar service in Racine, can make the trip from Milwaukee to Muskegon, in just 2Vi hours, and was set to make its first trip Tuesday morning, carrying up to 46 cars and as many as 250 passengers. Friends of Seniors has forged a deal with the city. They will open the Belle City Senior Center at 201 Goold St. The center will serve the senior population of the Racine area. St.

Rita's, located at 4339 Douglas will break ground on a new $3.9 million church on Saturday. It will be located just east of the current building. Gas prices at the pump dropped about a nickel Tuesday, but reductions are not expected to continue. mad slaughtered animals, following recommendations from an international scientific review panel. About 35 million head of cattle are slaughtered each year in the United States.

The ovenvhelmlng majority of tests will be oh animals considered most likely have mad cow those showing any sign of brain disorder, unable to stand on their own or deemed unfit for human consumption for other reasons. Tissue samples from those animals would be tested, as would I. 4 area I Kit vvn iLM ill 0 .111 Ji the Planned Par- -enthood Federation of America, and the ruling applies to the nation's 900 or so Planned Parenthood clinics and their doctors, who perform about half the 1.3 million abortions done each year in the United States. Federal judges in New York and Nebraska also heard challenges to the law earlier this year from other abortion-rights forces but have yet to rule. Planned Parenthood lawyer Beth Parker welcomed the ruling, saying it sends a 'strong message" to the Bush administration "that the government should not be intruding on very sensitive and private medical decisions." In a statement, the Bush reelection campaign said: "Today's tragic ruling upholding partial birth abortion shows why America needs judges who will interpret the law and not legislate from the bench.

The law, signed in November, represented the first substantial oxpsnslon Army Reservists Ferry In Rsctna Senior center sr. nsa Church Gas prices BY IRA DREYFUSS Associated Press WASHINGTON The Agriculture Department began expanded national testing for mad cow disease Tuesday, intending to test about 220,000 animals for the brain-wasting condition over the next year to 18 months. Officials said the department was able to handle the first day's samples even though most of the dozen regional laboratories aren't yet equipped to perform the initial FREE ESTIMATES LIFETIME WARRANTY Government rfTJ Last month, 9.3 inches of rain fell on Racine County, nearly three times the monthly May average of 3.3 inches, according to accuweatner.com The heavy rains flooded fields, raised river levels and provided needed water to area trees, which have suffered through two years of drought-like conditions. Local Army Reservists with the 126th Field Artillery unit were put on alert for possible deployment to Iraq. Plans had stalled to bring a ferry to Racine with routes to Michigan and Chicago.

An organization called Friends of Seniors was negotiating with the city of Racine to use city property for a senior center. The group had sought to create a senior center for years. Vulcan Materials which operates the quarry adjacent to St. Rita's Catholic Church, hoped to buy nine acres of land from St. Rita's for $1 million.

The St Rita's congregation voted overwhelming-ly against the proposal, and the offer was rejected. Gasoline prices that had seldom reached $2 per gallon have exceeded that and stayed there for at least a month. The wholesale price is 30 to 40 cents higher than early this year. The government last year conducted mad cow tests on tissues from 20,543 animals, virtually all of them cattle that could not stand or walk and had to be dragged to slaughter. After the nation's first case of the disease in December, the department initially doubled the number of animals to be tested this year to 40,000.

With many foreign governments still1 reluctant to ease bans on U.S. beef, the testing program was expanded at a cost of $70 million to include as many as 220,000 1-2 DAf SERVICE INSURANCE CLAIM ASSISTANCE FREE RENTAL CAR 2617 Lathrop Ave. Racine (across from bank Elmwood) Call Mark 282-632-1834 an Hi ena The County Board Is expected to vote on a proposal to expand the jail in July. It will take at least a week of dry weather before farmers will be able to get their equipment into their fields to repair damage and replant seeds. The same goes for local gardeners, who should avoid working in damp soil or risk having their dirt turn clumpy and unworkable.

While local Reservists wait for orders, approximately 175 reservists in Company of the 24th Marine Regiment based in Madison have been called up for active duty in Iraq. They will train for a couple of months in California before being sent to Iraq. James F. Rooney, a Racine official who was negotiating to bring a ferry to Racine, said Tuesday there were no plans to bring a ferry to the city. If the Milwaukee ferry succeeds, he said, perhaps a second boat could be added locally.

The center Opens June 1. Rob Golub It will take about one year to complete the new church, which will hold 850 people. The current church holds about 300 people, Dustin Block More bad news: The recent terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia may further raise prices. Fears over future disruptions in oil product may add an additional 36 cents onto current prices an increase that may be here for the long term. Michael Burke cow testing samples from animals that die on farms.

department's testing plans also include about 20,000 animals that appear healthy but are at least 30 months old, the age at which mad cow disease appears. The 12 state-operated labs around the country will perform the initial tests on brain and central nervous system tissue from slaughtered cattle for mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. Results from those tests will be returned in 24 to 72 hours. Ui DaiidlAlgrimDC Palmer Graduate ac begins emanded If you see an error in a story or a photograph in The Journal Times, please call Acting City Editor Dustin Block at (262) 631-1728 after 10 a.m. weekdays or News Editor Tom Farley at (262) 631-1723 after 5 p.m.

Corrections will be carried on this page. Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 767 will bring the Moving Wall, a half-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., to Pritchard Park in September of 2005. A story on Monday's Your Community page published the wrong date. abortion" by abortion foes. During the procedure, the living fetus is partially removed from the womb, and its skull is punctured or crushed.

Justice Department attorneys argued the procedure is inhumane, causes pain to the fetus and is never medically necessary. A government lawyer told the judge that it "blurs the line of abortion and infanticide." Abortion proponents argued, however, that a woman's health during an abor tion is more important than how the fetus is terminated, and that the banned method is often safer than a conventional abortion, in which the fetus is dismembered in the womb and then removed in pieces. In her ruling, the judge said it was "grossly misleading and inaccurate" to suggest the banned procedure verges on infanticide. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, the chief sponsor of the House bill, said the banned abortion method "has no place in a civilized society," and predicted the Supreme Court would decide the outcome.

"Regardless of this decision from San Francisco, partial-birth abortion remains a horrific practice that snuffs out innocent life seconds before the baby takes its first breath," Chabot said. The measure, which President Clinton had twice vetoed, was seen by abortion rights activists as a fundamental departure from the Supreme Court's 1973 precedent in Roe v. Wade. It Right Pao want ad am4 Ji pm weekdays) am. -Noon Saturday) Dwciay auVsrUslig.

OB) (I a bl4 nm waskdaya) a-anvassiiiwa. Bti ii.idinl rim PORPHYRIA When the sun Is not your Health, Page 11 A The Journal Times Kacimt Commiy'i Daily Nippr boll Mf-wtO-dOUv LLLlz www.U-tichdflirtnffloval.eoni i PAINTLESS DENT REMOVAL oo Algrim Chiropractic Office, S.C. The Journal Times 146 yearn of aarvice Volume 147, No. 154 (ISSN 0746-2857) a m. and 30 m.

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