Partial-birth abortion is actually not abortion but infanticide. Unlike other abortions where the fetus is destroyed within the womb, this procedure kills a child who is already partially delivered and outside the mother's body. A doctor, who is supposed to be concerned with healing, is thus involved in actively ending the life of someone he can see and touch. This is a practice no ethical doctor will engage in and no civilized society should tolerate. 

The partial-birth abortion procedure is not found in the medical textbooks; it is not accepted medical practice. In fact, its use borders on medical malpractice. The only reason it continues is because it is cloaked in the rhetoric of abortion rights. Yet this procedure not only takes the life of a child, it also poses serious health risks for women. 

Partial-birth abortion is not an emergency procedure. The woman's cervix must be forcibly dilated over a two- to three-day period. Multiple dilators are placed in the cervix, which can cause cramping and pain. The woman is then sent home or to a hotel room while the cervix is prepared. 

In the remainder of the procedure, the mother's bag of water is broken. Then the baby is turned around to a feet-first position inside the womb, using forceps, and pulled down into the vagina, except for the head. After this partial delivery, scissors are forced into the base of the skull and a suction is used to remove the brains. The delivery of the now dead baby is then completed. 

The prolonged manipulation of the cervix introduces the serious risk of infection and excessive bleeding. Turning the child inside the womb using forceps risks rupture or puncture of the uterus, infection and hemorrhage from displacing the placenta. Inserting the scissors -- a blind procedure -- risks cutting the cervix. 

Beyond the immediate risks, partial-birth abortion can undermine a woman's future fertility and compromise future pregnancies. Ruptures and cuts received to the uterine wall and cervix can cause scarring and make it difficult for the woman to conceive again. The forcible dilation over such a prolonged period can weaken the cervix, making it more difficult to carry a child to full term. 

Partial-birth abortion is unsafe at any time, in any place. The procedure uses techniques that are outdated and do not represent the appropriate standard of care. Women have much safer options. 

For the child partially born, this procedure is gruesome and painful. In the past it was thought that a fetus of 22 to 24 weeks' gestation, the time during which many partial-birth abortions are performed, felt no pain. 

But medical research has established that a fetus of this age will experience pain; indeed, will experience pain that is three to five times more intense than that perceived by an adult. For this reason, infants of this age in intensive care are routinely sedated and anesthetized for painful procedures. But no pain management is offered for the infant who is the victim of partial-birth abortion. 

There is no reason to allow the use of partial birth-abortion and every reason to stop it. We urge citizens to contact their state lawmakers and ask them to override the governor's veto and pass the Infant's Protection Act on Sept. 15. What was right in May is still right in September. 

                                        All content � 1999 The Kansas City Star

Source:   Washington Times; January 14, 2003

Study Shows Threefold Increase in Partial-Birth Abortions

Washington, DC -- The number of partial-birth abortions has tripled in the past four years, according to a report on abortion trends released this week.
 
An estimated 2,200 dilation and extraction, or partial-birth, abortions were conducted in 2000, said researchers with the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute, who surveyed all known U.S. abortion facilities during the past two years. In 1996, institute researchers estimated that there had been 650 partial-birth abortions, which are performed on unborn children older than 20 weeks.

The 2,200 partial-birth abortions account for 0.17 percent of abortions, said institute researchers Lawrence Finer and Stanley Henshaw. Moreover, the 2,200 figure "should be interpreted cautiously because projections based on such small numbers are subject to error," they wrote.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director, and Dr. Randall O'Bannon, director of education, of the National Right to Life Committee said the new number shows one of two things: "Either they vastly underreported the number in 1996 or there's been a huge increase, more than
tripling partial-birth abortions in four years."

"We think even the new number only represents a fraction of the true number," Johnson added.

In the new study, AGI tries to minimize the significance of the 2,200 figure by saying that it amounts to only a fraction of 1% of all reported
abortions. Johnson commented, "It is unbelievably callous to dismiss the killing of 2,200 mostly delivered babies as 'rare.' If a virus was killing 2,200 pre-mature infants, we'd call it an epidemic."

Johnson noted that the survey question describes the abortion method in a way that is so confused and inaccurate that even abortionists who have performed hundreds of partial-birth abortions, as legally defined, could honestly answer that they have never performed the
procedure described in the question. Secondly, responses to the AGI survey are purely voluntary, and abortionists who perform large numbers of partial-birth abortions may be disinclined to feed the national controversy by voluntarily reporting.

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From:  The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org>