More Partial-Birth Abortion Information |
This is an update from the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) on the
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, issued Thursday, October 23, 2003, at 3:00
p.m. ET.
For further information, send e-mail to
Legfederal@aol.com, call 202-626-8820, or visit the NRLC website section
on partial-birth abortion at
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/index.html
If direct attribution is desired for anything below, it is to NRLC
Legislative Director Douglas Johnson.
(1) The analysis by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) on this
week's events, and our recap on the major turning points in the history of
the partial-birth abortion issue, is here:
http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/issues/alert/?alertid=3418791&type=CO
(2) We have received many press inquiries regarding anticipated legal
challenges after President Bush signs the bill into law. We have pointed
out that the Stenberg case in 2000, which struck down Nebraska's ban on
partial-birth abortion (and effectively blocked enforcement of bans enacted
by more than two dozen other states), was a 5 to 4 ruling. Four justices --
including one who supports Roe v. Wade, Justice Kennedy -- voted to uphold
the law. Five Supreme Court justices ruled that Roe v. Wade empowers an
abortionist to perform partial-birth abortions when he sees fit. We hope
that by the time the federal law reaches the Supreme Court, there will a
shift of at least one vote away from the extreme and inhumane position taken
by the five justices in that case -- either by one justice reassessing the
issue or by a retirement from the Court. This litigation poses the
question: Does the Constitution really guarantee a right to mostly deliver
a premature human infant and then brutally kill her?
(3) On the Senate floor on October 21, Senator Barbara Boxer complained
about language used by Senator Rick Santorum. A response by NRLC
Legislative Director Douglas Johnson appears as an op-ed in today's USA
TODAY, here:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-10-22-oppose_x.htm
All documents quoted in that op-ed are available from NRLC.
(4) In a September 17 press release, the Planned Parenthood Federation of
America (PPFA) asserted that "S. 3 [is] a bill to outlaw a medical procedure
used primarily in emergency abortions." But in early 1997, even Kate
Michelman and Gloria Feldt reluctantly were compelled to admit that this was
untrue, after the claim was disproved by investigative journalists and
emphatically repudiated by the executive director of the National Coalition
of Abortion Providers. (Documentation on request, and at
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/index.html , in the tier for late 1996
and early 1997.) Moreover, in statements this week, PPFA inconsistently
asserts that the same bill will ban ALL abortions after the first
trimester. We hope that everybody with an interest will read and quote the
actual definition from the bill, examine and share the medical illustrations
of (1) a partial-birth abortion, and (2) a "dilation and evacuation"
(dismemberment) abortion, and allow readers/viewers to make up their own
minds who is telling the truth about what the bill bans. The official text
of the bill as passed by Congress is here:
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/partial-birth%20abortion%20Ban%20act%20final%20language.htm
(5) During this week's Senate debate, detailed color illustrations of the
partial-birth abortion method were again used on the Senate floor, and shown
on several TV networks. The documentation on the accuracy of these drawings,
which depict an unborn baby at 24 weeks, is here:
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/PBA_Images/PBA_Images_Heathers_Place.htm
Nucleus Medical Art illustrations of a D&E at 23 weeks are here:
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/DEabortiongraphic.html
(6) In recent weeks, we have seen many claims that the term "partial-birth
abortion" is "not found in any medical dictionary." (Example: NOW
President Kim Gandy, Oct. 21 press release: "Try as you might, you won't
find the term 'partial birth abortion' in any medical dictionary.") This
claim is diversionary, since "partial-birth abortion" is a legal term of art
that is defined by Congress in the bill itself (S. 3). However, the claim
is also untrue. If you go to major medical websites such as Medline at the
National Institutes of Health or the Intelihealth site affiliated with the
Harvard Medical School, and use the medical dictionary search tools (which
access the Merriam Webster Medical Dictionary), you find "partial-birth
abortion" defined as "an abortion in the second or third trimester of
pregnancy in which the death of the fetus is induced after it has passed
partway through the birth canal." See:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mplusdictionary.html
http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW000/9276/9276.html
However, the legal scope of the ban in S. 3 is narrower than that medical
definition, because to fall under the legal ban in S. 3, as the bill
explicitly provides, the baby must be delivered, while still alive,
feet-first outside the mother's body (not only outside the womb), past the
navel. (Or, if anybody did it head first, the entire head must be delivered
outside the mother's body.)
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