Reproductive rights update.

There are two items of note in today's news roundup:

• The Department of Justice has appealed their trial-court loss in San Francisco in which the district court declared the 2003 federal ban on late-term abortions unconstitutional; you can read the San Francisco Chronicle story here. Considering the unbroken string of losses they have suffered on this statute, which blatantly and baldly fails to include an exception to protect the health of the mother (as required by the Supreme Court in Stenberg), you have to wonder: Is this issue about anything other than staying in touch with the Republicans' conservative base and giving the president a debating point between now and November?
• Planned Parenthood (which is a plaintiff in the San Francisco litigation) has joined with the ACLU in a suit to take a parental-notification provision off the November 2 ballot; you can read the Tallahassee Democrat article here. The plaintiffs claim that the wording of the ballot item deceptively claims that it increases privacy protections: "'What it fails to tell voters is that it will reverse Florida Supreme Court decisions and take away the privacy rights guaranteed by the Florida constitution,' said ACLU attorney Randall Marshall." The ACLU's press release on the suit is here.