--- Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> At 05:22 PM 1/30/04, Deborah Harrell wrote:
> >Forbidding saving of the mother's life in favor of
> > the unborn, if the mother's life is at stake
> >(unless they've amended that since last I looked?)
> Is that exactly what it says, or is that a
> paraphrase or interpretation of
> what it says? If the latter, what is the original
> statement?
>
> (Not an argument, just a request for clarification.)
>From a medical standpoint, "partial birth abortion"
isn't even a term that is used; very-late-term
pregnancy terminations, in the eyes of most (if not
nearly all) of the medical community should *only* be
used if the mother's life is in clear and immediate
danger (such as uncontrollable, runaway eclampsia).
While I personally am unaware of a situation in which
some other abortion/induction procedure would not be
more suitable in a 'life-of-the-mother' case, that
does not mean it doesn't exist.
But yes, the wording specifically states that "There
exists substantial record evidence upon which Congress
has reached its conclusion that a ban on partial-birth
abortion is not required to contain a `health'
exception, because the facts indicate that a
partial-birth abortion is never necessary to preserve
the health of a woman, poses serious risks to a
woman's health, and lies outside the standard of
medical care."
Yet this document goes on to note "Indeed, unlike
other more commonly used abortion procedures, there
are currently ***no medical schools*** that provide
instruction on abortions that include the instruction
in partial-birth abortions in their curriculum."
[emphasis mine]
Thus, this act forbids a specific procedure that is
***not even taught,*** as defined in the text. I see
this law as superfluous and unnecessary; I think it is
a wedge to forbidding other abortion procedures in the
future, and eventual outlawing of all abortion.
This is both text and ("conservative") commentary on
the act:
http://www.theorator.com/bills108/s3.html
While I disagree with the AMA on multiple issues, here
is one of their earlier comments about "partial birth
abortion:" [more recent comments are "abstract not
available" on PubMed]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10404899&dopt=Abstract
"The three articles by Dr. Gans Epner, Drs. Sprang and
Neerhof, and Dr. Grimes centered around the issue that
criminal laws against so-called partial-birth abortion
go beyond banning any one abortion procedure or just
"late-term" procedures. It is noted that even the
authors gave different definitions of "late term". In
addition, neither the phrase "late term" nor "intact
dilation" and evacuation is present or defined in any
of the partial-birth abortion laws passed in 27 states
or in the federal bill. Evidence shows that 17 courts
across the US have blocked partial-birth abortion laws
as unconstitutional, finding such laws could, at any
point in a pregnancy, outlaw an abortion performed
using the most common and safest procedures. In these
terms, the endorsement of the federal partial-birth
abortion law by the American Medical Association gave
credibility to the deception that partial-birth
abortion legislation is a ban on the intact dilation
and extraction procedure. Moreover, it has endorsed
government intrusion in a private medical decision and
sanctioned a law that subjects physicians to criminal
prosecution for providing necessary health care."
Debbi
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