Even before President Bush signed a bill into law in November outlawing a type of late-term abortion, opponents made the unusual step of filing three federal lawsuits seeking to block it.

The federal lawsuits will be heard today in a trio of courtrooms stretching from coast to coast as pro-choice activists challenge the first substantial limitation on abortion since the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

The simultaneous litigation focuses on the ban on late term abortions.

The National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and a handful of doctors sued in San Francisco, New York and Lincoln, Neb., to overturn the law.