House Okays Partial Abortion Ban

Abortion Forum

House OKs 'Partial Abortion' Ban



By Joanne Kenen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday approved a ban on "partial birth abortions," bringing anti-abortion forces within easy reach of a long-sought victory.


The U.S. Senate is expected to act within weeks, sending it to President Bush (news - web sites), who plans to sign it.


If the bill withstands legal challenges, it would be the first time a specific form of abortion has been criminalized since the 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade (news - web sites) ruling upholding abortion rights.


The American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) and the National Abortion Federation (news - web sites) have already announced plans to file a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. Courts have struck down several similar state statutes.


The House approved the bill earlier this year, as it has several times in recent years, but Thursday it voted 281-142 to pass a final version after House-Senate negotiators removed some Senate language backing the Roe decision.


Amid intense and graphic debate, the ban has been considered in (the U.S.) Congress repeatedly since 1995. Under the bill, a doctor could face up to two years in prison as well as civil lawsuits for performing a "partial birth" abortion.


Calling it "gruesome and barbaric," House Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) chairman James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, declared, "The difference between a partial birth abortion which this bill will ban and first degree murder is three inches -- three inches."


The bill defines the procedure as an abortion in which a fetus is delivered vaginally until the head is outside the mother's body, or in the case of a breech presentation, when the fetal trunk past the naval is outside the mother's body and then the physician "kills the partially delivered living fetus."


Opponents of the ban say it is unconstitutional because it does not provide an exception to protect the health of a pregnant woman. Some also argue that the bill will actually apply to other more common abortion techniques, not just one particularly troublesome one.


New York Democrat Louise Slaughter said that backers of the ban are distorting it to suggest that it is a common procedure undertaken cavalierly on healthy fetuses. She argued that it is most often used when there are severe fetal deformities. "These are not children who will be born and run around the room," she said.


Backers of the ban say it is used as an elective procedure in the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy.


A group of lawmakers, mostly Democrats but some moderate Republicans, has tried and failed to enact a substitute that would ban all elective late term abortions, except when there are serious health concerns. That bill would focus on the timing of abortion, rather than a technique but anti-abortion groups say the health language is a wide loophole.

While i am for this ban, i don't understand why they are opting to ban only a technique. In order for partial-birth abortions to be barbaric (which they unquestionably are) then there has to be a human victim. If that is the case, then why would another technique be suitable? I like the idea of banning all late-term abortions better than just ones using this technique, that seems a little less hypocritical ... but just a little. After all, the difference between a 2nd trimester and 3rd trimester baby is a matter of weeks, what does a "late term" have to do with the baby's humanity?
For anyone who is following this legislation, take careful note on who opposes it. Anyone who would seriously stand up and try to preserve a procedure that partially delivers a living human being only to allow a 'doctor' to drive a surgical tool into the back of its skull and suck out its brain has no place in our government.
Just think about this, if during this procedure the doctor accidentally pulls the baby all the way through, then the child is considered alive by the law and killing it then would be murder. What?! How is that child any different from the one they kill while it is still partially in the womb?
Abortion law in this country is a joke. People who complain about special interest groups in politics, let me have your attention. The ONLY reason this barbarism is still going on today is because of special interst feminist groups who are so scared of a slippery slope, they will make NO comprimises whatsoever to grant even the most paltry of rights to the unborn. I mean, these poor kids don't even have the right to be killed humanely. I mean come on people, is there anyone out there who seriously opposes this?

Lol, i'm glad we could agree as well=)
From what i know mystic, this procedure is the most common one for late-term abortions after the baby has reached a certain size. The increased size of the baby makes other methods used in the 1st trimester impossible, so what they do is dilate the woman, manually shift the baby into a breach position, deliver it up to it's neck, and then puncture the back of the skull and suck out the brain. While the vast majority of abortions take place in the 1st trimester, this type of abortion takes place thousands of times each year.
While this procedure is awful, if our law doesn't recognize the baby in this circumstance as a human, then why is it awful? I support this legislation, but I think that it is playing into the hippocracy that is abortion law, instead of trying to make it better.