Supreme Court Hearing On Abortion Case Wednesday

Linda Greenhouse for the NY Times reports that Wednesday the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of the federal "Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act." Greenhouse says the Court's decision in the case will likely turn on the opinion of Justice Kennedy, and she describes how the case litigants have constructed their arguments accordingly. update: Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog reports that the Court has announced a prompt release for audiotapes of the oral arguments. (There are actually two abortion cases being heard: Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood) The audiotapes will be made available "shortly after the conclusion of each of the arguments."