Ask any political scientist why America is the longest-running and most stable democracy in the world and he or she will probably tell you the secret: a system of checks and balances that keeps tyrants from wielding absolute power.

Unfortunately, a recent and growing trend in the judiciary is particularly disturbing. The judiciary is increasingly taking over the legislative branch and its authority to make laws.

The most recent example of this takeover is found in the decision by U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf regarding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.

The act describes a partial-birth abortion as the following: “a physician delivers an unborn child’s body until only the head remains inside the womb, punctures the back of the child’s skull with a sharp instrument and sucks the child’s brains out before completing delivery of the dead infant.”

When President Bush signed the act in November 2003, Gallup reported that 68 percent of the public agreed that the procedure should be illegal. The act passed the House 282-139 and the Senate 64-33. Congress represented the will of the people when it passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Act. The federal legislature has passed bans on the procedure three times, and a minimum of 27 states have also banned the procedure.

But there are judges who won’t listen to Congress or the public.

The partial-birth abortion ban has not been enforced because it was immediately challenged in three non-jury trials in the federal circuit courts. All three have ruled the ban unconstitutional, primarily because it lacks an exception provision for the “mother’s health.”

It is primarily this ruling of the court to which I take exception.

Throughout the series of bans that Congress passed, it found the “mother’s health” exception that the federal judges hold in high regard useless because there is no case in which the partial-birth abortion saves the mother. Even if this were the case, the act does make an exception for the life of the mother.

The congressional findings stated in the act itself add further evidence of the futility of the “mother’s health” argument. The act states that even “the physician credited with developing the partial-birth abortion procedure has testified that he has never encountered a situation where a partial-birth abortion was medically necessary to achieve the desired outcome and, thus, is never medically necessary to preserve the health of a woman.”

The decisions throughout the past year made by the three federal judges to knock down the partial-birth abortion ban are tyrannical and contrary to their own judicial precedent toward congressional findings.

Stenberg v. Carhart was a defining case decided in 2000 that declared the state of Nebraska’s partial birth abortion ban unconstitutional.

The Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003 attempted to address the judge’s concerns from this case. It also provided additional congressional findings, of which the Supreme Court has typically shown great respect.

The judicial branch demonstrated its respect for congressional findings in Katzenbach v. Morgan when the Supreme Court stated, “It is not for us to review the congressional resolution of these factors. It is enough that we be able to perceive a basis upon which the Congress might resolve the conflict as it did.”

The judicial branch is creating a tyranny in which it is the ultimate authority in the nation. The difficulty President Bush has encountered during the confirmation of his judicial nominees in the Senate also evidences the increasing judicial power. The confirmation process has become bitter and partisan because the senators themselves realize judges are increasingly the final authority when it comes to public policy. Hence, the senators want judges on the bench who will uphold their particular ideologies in public policy.

Where are all the good political scientists to remind us of the system of checks and balances which prevent this judicial tyranny?