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The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court decision that had held Nebraska's statute banning partial-birth abortion to be unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The lower court had permanently enjoined enforcement of the statute. Nebraska's Partial-Birth Abortion Act prohibited "an abortion procedure in which the person performing the abortion partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child and completing the delivery." A physician who performs abortions had challenged this statute as being vague and overly broad. The lower court had ruled that the statute was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment since it banned the common dilation and evacuation (D&E) procedure thereby creating an undue burden for women seeking to terminate a pregnancy before the fetus becomes viable.