We all hear about late term abortions or as Charles Canady (R-Fla) coined in 1995 “partial birth abortions”. This November the 8th, the United States Supreme Court is going to be hearing a case where they will determine the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003. This is an act “to prohibit the procedure commonly known as partial-birth abortion”. They are looking at to see if the act is invalid because it “lacks a health exception”, which Congress determined unnecessary to preserve the health of the mother, and then to see if it is unconstitutional for any other reasons that may arise. The cases presented are Gonzales, Attorney General, v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., et al; and Gonzales, Attorney General, v. Carhart, et al.
Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973), a companion ruling to Roe v. Wade, requires that a state’s restriction on abortions must include a health exception for women, and that it must include mental health as well as physical health in this exception. The Act of 2003 does not include an exception because the information shown to Congress convinced the Congress that, “the facts indicate that a partial-birth abortion is never necessary to preserve the health of a woman”, (Section 2.13) Here’s where it gets a little interesting, Congress when make its laws and passing act, even when they are so closely intertwined with the courts’ decisions, can choose to disregard any information and previous court rulings and reach its own factual findings independent of the courts. So while the Supreme Court must uphold previous decisions and take those into account, Congress can make decisions without information it defines as flawed or erroneous. In this case, Congress determined that such abortions are never necessary to save a woman’s life, which puts the bill in direct opposition to the ruling concerning Doe v. Bolton.
The CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health, on April 14th of this year, stated that a late term abortion, being defined as the pregnancy at 21 weeks or later, account for only 1.4% of all American abortions. Intact Dilation and Extraction abortions, where the fetus is removed via the cervix and is mostly intact, thus the “partial birth” status, account for about 15% of late term abortions. Annually, this is between 2,500 and 3,000 cases according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, but many estimates are significantly lower.
With this being such a small percentage of abortions, it is somewhat surprising to see this at the forefront of the abortion debate if you look strictly at the numbers. Think about the other 98.6% of cases, some of the numbers there are a little staggering, but you’ve heard more about partial birth abortions than any other kind. The reason this is probably at the height of the debate is the appearance of and the name “partial-birth” when it comes to these abortions. If you physically look at this procedure it does very closely resemble the initial process of birth, where all of the fetus besides the head is outside of the mother, which is highly disturbing. The fetus’s brain tissue is removed, and the fetus is then removed completely from the mother. It is a process you will never want to see. People on all sides of the political spectrum readily admit both this resemblance and its disturbing nature.
The key in this though is that it is a resemblance. In his State of the Union address of 2003, President Bush said this bill would “protect infants at the very hour of their birth.” Sorry Mr. President, but you’re about 15 to 20 weeks early. Partial birth abortions generally happen between the 20th and 24th, while a full term pregnancy is usually 40 weeks. At 20 weeks, a fetus is at right about a pound, and the National Center for Health Statistics says the survival rate for babies born weighing 1 pound 1 ounce is only about 14%. Though it is honestly hard to get past the visual and look at such numbers objectively.
The name “partial-birth” is to offend people, it is a political term to make people oppose it . The 2003 Act says that the “gruesome and inhumane nature of the partial-birth abortion procedure and its disturbing similarity to the killing of a newborn infant promotes a complete disregard for infant human life”(Section 2.14-L). Even our laws in the case of abortion are emotionally and politically charged to make them seem like an act of complete barbarism. For a lot of people, that is exactly what they are. Abortion, whether it be partial-birth or abortion in general, is one of the larger issues in our society that has basically no middle ground. It is a decision that is heavily intertwined with your family, your religion, your personal beliefs, and your passion. Reserved debates on abortion are quite a rarity, because it is incredibly hard to separate your emotions in this case.
My personal views on abortion aren’t important for a few reasons. The first is that, as it stands right now, partial-birth abortions are illegal under federal law. Equally as important is that we seem to need pro-life and pro-choice citizens in this debate. I would over joyously prefer the number of abortions to go down because our citizens had smarter and safer sex which could allow stricter regulations on abortion cases, but at the same time I never want to see a bill passed on abortion that says there will never be a moment where this is life saving to the mother. As much as we know about the human body, I do not feel that we know enough to limit our options when it comes to the possibility of saving a life. With the Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003, I’m not trying to rattle the cage and overturn all abortion laws and let them run rampant in the streets, the point of this was to get the whole issue out there and simply ask why not put in a simple clause that says they’re okay if the mother’s life is at risk.
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