Legal Uncertainty Surrounds Delaware's Abortion Law

The News Journal: Delaware law on abortion trapped in legal limbo, by Sean O'Sullivan & Chad Livengood:

Indicted abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell routinely started late-term abortion procedures at the Atlantic Women's Medical Services clinic in Wilmington and then ordered his patients to report to his Women's Medical Society Clinic in West Philadelphia the next day to complete the procedure.

According to a Philadelphia grand jury, Gosnell moved his patients across the state border to avoid Delaware's limits on late-term abortions.

But if Gosnell thought he was fleeing a tough Delaware abortion law, he was wrong.

While Delaware code prohibits abortions after 20 weeks, that section of the state's abortion law was ruled invalid after the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion.

And for nearly 40 years, Delaware has avoided most attempts to clarify its statute. . . .