According to Ron Fitzsimmons, Executive Director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, and other sources, it appears that partial-birth abortions are performed at least 3,000 to 5,000 times annually. Based on published interviews with numerous abortionists, and interviews with Fitzsimmons, the "vast majority" of partial-birth abortions are performed in the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy, on healthy babies of healthy mothers.
Health of the Mother Myth
Pro-abortion advocacy groups have made strenuous efforts to persuade the public that partial-birth abortions are necessary to protect the lives or health of pregnant women, and many have uncritically accepted this claim at face value. However, these claims are coming under increasingly sharp challenge from prestigious medical experts.
At a briefing on Capitol Hill, Dr. Curtis Cook, an ob/gyn perinatologist with the West Michigan Perinatal and Genetic Diagnostic Center, said of partial-birth abortion:
It is never necessary to preserve the life or the fertility of the mother, and may in fact threaten her health or well-being or future fertility. In my practice, I see these rare, unusual cases that come to most generalists' offices once in a lifetime - they all come into our office. We see these every day....The presence of fetal disabilities or fetal anomalies are not a reason to have a termination of pregnancy to preserve the life of the mother - they do not threaten the life of the mother in any way....[and] where these rare instances do occur, they do not require the death of the baby or the fetus prior to the completion of the delivery.
Dr. Pamela Smith, Director of Medical Education in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Mt. Sinai Hospital, Chicago, said:
There are absolutely no obstetrical situations encountered in this country which require a partially delivered human fetus to be destroyed to preserve the health of the mother.
Anesthesia Myth
Abortion proponents also claim that anesthesia given to the mother kills the baby before the procedure. However, the American Society of Anesthesiologists says anesthesia given to the mother does NOT kill or harm the baby - and it does not reliably protect the baby from pain.
According to Robert J. White, MD., Ph.D. professor of neurosurgery at Case Western Reserve University, an unborn child at 20 weeks gestation:
Is fully capable of experiencing pain…Without question, [abortion] is a dreadfully painful experience for any infant subjected to such a surgical procedure.
In the report that Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand, expert on fetal pain, delivered to the U.S. federal court reviewing the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act he stated that:
Anesthetic agents that are routinely administered to the mother during this procedure would be insufficient to ensure that the fetus does not feel pain, and higher doses of anesthetic drugs, enough to produce fetal anesthesia, would seriously compromise the health of the mother. Thus, it is my opinion that the fetus would be subjected to intense pain, occurring prior to fetal demise, from the abortion procedures described in the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.
In testimony before the House Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee on March 21, 1996, Dr. David J. Birnbach, president-elect of the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology, testified:
In order to cause fetal demise, it would be necessary to give the mother dangerous and life-threatening doses of anesthesia." [...] Although there is no evidence that this massive dose will cause fetal demise, there is clear evidence that this excessive dose could cause maternal death.
Federal Law
President Bush signed the Ban on Partial Birth Abortion on November 3, 2003, but three federal courts promptly issued temporary restraining orders preventing enforcement of the ban. The parties challenging the federal law argue that the ban is unconstitutional because the language is overbroad and lacks an exception to protect women’s health.
On July 8, 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that the congressional ban on partial-birth abortion is in conflict with a 5 to 4 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court (Roe v. Wade). Both the Second and Ninth Circuits are likely to hand down their rulings during the months just ahead, making the issue ripe for possible review by the U.S. Supreme Court during the 2005-2006 term.
Texas Law
Representative Hartnett (R-Dallas) successfully added a pro-life amendment to Senate Bill 419 during the 79th Legislative Session. This amendment prohibits physicians or applicants for a medical license from performing third trimester abortions of a viable unborn child. As originally presented by Representative Hartnett, the amendment allowed for only one exception: to preserve the life of the mother. However, two additional exceptions were amended onto the Hartnett amendment. Although Representative Hartnett and other staunch pro-life representatives disagreed with these additional exceptions, Representative Hartnett accepted them in order to preserve the greater amendment. The two additional exceptions were both authored by Representative Raymond (D-Laredo) and allow a physician to perform the third trimester abortion if (1) the viable unborn child has severe, irreversible brain damage, or (2) the mother is likely to suffer imminent, severe, irreversible brain damage or imminent, severe paralysis if the abortion is not performed.
Prior to the Hartnett amendment, Texas statute had a nebulous ban on third trimester abortions (known as the ‘parturition’ statute) that allowed a physician to abort a viable unborn child if such physician thought that the continuance of pregnancy would cause the death of the mother or severe impairment of the woman’s physical or mental health. Due to the potentially broad interpretation of what constitutes severe impairment of a woman’s physical or mental health, the ban had little or no effect. The Hartnett amendment renders more effective the original third trimester abortion ban by narrowing the definition of severe physical impairment and by removing the mental health exception, a major loophole of the pre-existing language.
According to the most recent abortion statistics released by The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS), 107 abortions were performed in Texas at 25 weeks of pregnancy or greater in 2003; the total number of abortions in Texas in 2003 was 79,166. However, these figures reflect only the abortions that were reported to DSHS, and not all abortions are reported.
