Key Facts on
the
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act
March 28, 2000
* The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (HR 3660) is a bill in Congress to ban performance of a partial-birth abortion, at any point in pregnancy, except if it were necessary to the save a mother's life. The bill defines partial-birth abortion as "an abortion in which the person performing the abortion deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers some portion of an intact living fetus until the fetus is partially outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the fetus . . . while the intact living fetus is partially outside the body of the mother." The bill would permit use of the procedure "to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, illness, or injury."
* In a partial-birth abortion, the abortionist pulls a living baby feet-first out of the womb and into the birth canal (vagina), except for the head, which the abortionist purposely keeps lodged just inside the cervix (the opening to the womb). The abortionist punctures the base of the skull with a surgical instrument, such as a long surgical scissors or a pointed hollow metal tube called a trochar. He then inserts a catheter (tube) into the wound, and removes the baby's brain with a powerful suction machine. This causes the skull to collapse, after which the abortionist completes the delivery of the now-dead baby.
* Under state laws, a "live birth" occurs when a baby is entirely expelled from the mother and shows any signs of life, however briefly -- regardless of whether or not the baby is "viable," i.e., developed enough to be sustained outside the womb with neo-natal medical assistance. Even at 42 months (20 weeks), the earliest point at which a partial-birth abortion is usually performed, perinatologists say that if a baby is expelled or removed completely from the uterus, she will usually gasp for breath and sometimes survive for hours, even though lung development is still insufficient to permit successful sustained respiration until 23 weeks. Thus, the term "partial-birth" is accurate.
* According to Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers (1997), and other sources, it appears that Partial-Birth Abortions are performed 3,000 to 5,000 times annually. (Even those numbers may be low.) Based on published interviews with numerous abortionists, and interviews with Fitzsimmons in 1997, the "vast majority" of partial-birth abortions are performed in the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy, on healthy babies of healthy mothers.
* Legislative counter-proposals advanced with White House backing by Reps. Hoyer and Greenwood, and by Sen. Durbin, would place no limits on partial-birth abortions in the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy -- when it appears that over 90% of partial-birth abortions occur. Furthermore, these "phony bans" would allow an abortion even in the seventh month and later if an abortionist asserts that a baby is not "viable" or that an abortion is required by "health" problems. Reps. Hoyer and Greenwood admit that this would allow third-trimester abortions even for (in their words) "mental health" reasons.
* In January, 1997, the PBS program Media Matters showed that in 1995-96, the media largely swallowed a pro-abortion "party line" that partial-birth abortions are performed rarely and only in extreme medical circumstances -- claims later entirely discredited.
* Although usually used in the fifth and sixth months, the partial-birth abortion method has also been used to perform abortions in the third trimester -- that is, the seventh month and later -- most notably by the developer of the method, the late Dr. James McMahon. In a written submission to the House Judiciary Committee in June, 1995, McMahon explicitly acknowledged that he performed such abortions on babies with no "flaw" whatever, even in the third trimester, for such reasons as mere youth of the mother, or for "psychiatric" difficulties. Indeed, even at 29 weeks -- well into the seventh month -- one-fourth of the babies that McMahon aborted had no "flaw," however minor. McMahon's submission showed that in a "series" of about 2,000 such abortions that he performed, only 9% were performed for "maternal [health] indications," and of that group, the most common reason was "depression."
* The Physicians' Ad Hoc Coalition for Truth (PHACT) -- a group of over 600 physician-specialists (mostly in obstetrics, perinatology, and related disciplines) -- has spoken out to dispute claims that some women need partial-birth abortions to avoid serious physical injury. PHACT says: "We, and many other doctors across the United States, regularly treat women whose unborn children suffer these and other serious conditions. Never is the partial-birth procedure medically indicated. Rather, such infants are regularly and safely delivered live, vaginally, with no threat to the mother's health or fertility." In September, 1996, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and other PHACT members issued a statement that "partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary to protect a mother's health or her future fertility. On the contrary, this procedure can pose a significant threat to both."
* In May, 1997, the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was endorsed by the American Medical Association. In a letter to Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), AMA Executive Vice-president P. John Seward, M.D., wrote, "Thank you for the opportunity to work with you towards restricting a procedure we all agree is not good medicine."
* Some prominent defenders of partial-birth abortions, such as NARAL's Kate Michelman and syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman, have insisted that anesthesia kills the babies before they are removed from the womb. This myth has been refuted by professional societies of anesthesiologists. In reality, the babies are alive and experience great pain when subjected to a partial-birth abortion. [Documentation on request.]