The Truth About Partial-Birth Abortion
Three Works cited On June 28, 2000, Justice Clarence Thomas of the US Supreme Court explained a partial-birth abortion in his dissent re the court's ruling which overturned Nebraska's ban on such abortions: "After dilating the cervix, the physician will grab the fetus by its feet and pull the fetal body out of the uterus into the vaginal cavity. At this stage of development, the head is the largest part of the body. [. . .] the head will be held inside the uterus by the woman's cervix. While the fetus is stuck in this position, dangling partly out of the woman's body, and just a few inches from a completed birth, the physician uses an instrument such as a pair of scissors to tear or perforate the skull. The physician will then either crush the skull or will use a vacuum to remove the brain and other intracranial contents from the fetal skull, collapse the fetus' head, and pull the fetus from the uterus." (Thomas)
Justic Thomas' statement describes the surrealistic administration of partial-birth abortion, or the near-complete delivery and then puncture-killing of the baby. Most people's consciences do not disturb them re this procedure because they do not fully understand that the killing occurs when the baby has been almost entirely delivered. A fully viable baby is killed!
Regarding this approach to abortion, a common misunderstanding is reflected by a corrective letter to the Editor of the Wall Street Journal on May 14, 2001, which attempted to right certain wrong statements from a Journal article about partial-birth abortion:
The Journal has informed its readers that partial-birth abortion is a "rare" procedure, "typically performed when the life of the mother is at risk, or the fetus is determined to have severe abnormalities" ("Drive to Ban Abortion Procedure Slows," April 27.) But those claims, fabricated by pro-abortion advocacy groups in 1995, had been thoroughly discredited by early 1997.
The Journal said that "critics . . . contend the procedure sometimes is used in less dire circumstances." Actually, it was abortionists and their paid spokespersons who admitted that partial-birth abortion is routinely used for purely elective abortions, usually in the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy. For example, Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, told The New York Times that "in the vast majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus" (Feb. 26, 1997). Mr. Fitzsimmons elsewhere estimated that 4,000-5,000 abortions annually are performed by the partial-birth method. He expressed regret for his own role in previously propagating what he called a "party line," stating, "I lied through my teeth."
The claim that partial-birth abortions are used only or mostly in unusual medical circumstances was also disproved by reporters for the Hackensack (N.J.) Record and the Washington Post, among others. These reporters interviewed numerous abortionists, who readily acknowledged that they routinely use the method for purely elective abortions.
In January 1997, the PBS media criticism program "Media Matters" treated as a case study in bad reporting the news media's earlier, uncritical dissemination of the abortion lobby's lies about partial-birth abortion. For a respected national newspaper to resurrect such blatant misinformation four years later may demonstrate how attached some journalists are to comforting myths about abortion.
Douglas Johnson
Mistakenly, the Journal had gone along with the popular notion that this gruesome abortion technique is performed only rarely in America. When the state of Nebraska passed legislation banning partial-birth abortion, the law was challenged, and the case went to the Supreme Court. On June 28, 2000, Justice Antonin Scalia stated in his dissenting opinion, "Today's decision, that the Constitution of the United States prevents the prohibition of a horrible mode of abortion, will be greeted by a firestorm of criticism - as well it should."
WORKS CITED
Johnson, Douglas. "Comforting Myths About Abortion."
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/wallstreet051401.html
Scalia, Antonin. "STENBERG, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF NEBRASKA, et al. v. CARHART ."
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&linkurl=http%253a//smultron.com/&vol=000&invol=99-830
Thomas, Clarence. "U.S. SUPREME COURT:ROE V. WADE = PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTIONS."
http://www.nrlc.org/press_releases_arc/Release062800.html
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