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The Daily Press, Newport News, VARICHMOND - A full federal appeals court agreed Monday to review a panel decision striking down a Virginia law banning a type of late-term abortion.
The state attorney general's office asked for the rehearing after a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared the ban unconstitutional on May 20. Oral arguments are expected in late October.
The law bans a procedure that abortion opponents call "partial-birth abortion." Judge M. Blane Michael wrote in the panel's majority opinion that the law is unconstitutional "because it imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to obtain an abortion."
An appeals court panel first struck down the statute in 2005. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the court to take another look after upholding a similar federal abortion ban last year.
"We are pleased by today's decision that the full 4th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear this case for the first time," said J. Tucker Martin, a spokesman for Attorney General Bob McDonnell.
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