Despite a powerful Supreme Court ruling, the United States House of Representatives is expected to once again consider a ban on so-called "partial-birth abortion." Less than three years ago, the Supreme Court ruled unequivocally in Stenberg v. Carhart that so-called "partial-birth abortion" bans pose grave threats to women's health and violate the Constitution.
The phrase so-called "partial-birth abortion" does not describe a recognized medical procedure. Rather, it is an inflammatory term invented by abortion opponents to provoke legislators and the public. The legislation before the Senate would seriously compromise women's health and drastically limit physicians' discretion to choose the most medically appropriate abortion method for their patients.
The sponsors of "The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003" (HR 760) claim that the newest iteration of the ban is materially different from earlier versions and that it should therefore withstand constitutional scrutiny. They are wrong. The bill continues to reach more than a single abortion procedure: it bans safe and common abortion methods used in the second trimester of pregnancy, well before fetal viability. And, most significantly, it continues to lack an exception to protect women's health -- a requirement that the Supreme Court said is constitutionally compelled.
President Clinton twice vetoed so-called "partial-birth abortion" bans passed by Congress. With anti-choice President Bush in the White House, we cannot rely on the President to block this dangerous measure.
Oppose this legislation now!
Doctors have testified repeatedly and numerous courts have found that similar laws prohibit the safest and most common second-trimester abortion procedures.
Although its sponsors characterize it as aimed at a single, "late-term" procedure, this legislation is not limited to any stage of pregnancy. In fact, the bill's terms would apply to an array of abortion procedures, including the most common method performed in the second-trimester of pregnancy.
Women must be able to rely on their doctors' discretion to use the abortion method safest for them.
Even if it were true, as the bill's proponents claim, that this bill covers only a single abortion procedure, banning it would still endanger women's health. A threat to women's health always results when a safe medical procedure is removed from the physician's array of options, as there will always be some woman for whom the banned procedure would be the safest. Legislators are not trained to make medical decisions. They should leave decisions about the best surgical techniques for abortion in the hands of doctors and patients. That is why the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Medical Women's Association, and the American Nurses Association all oppose so-called "partial-birth abortion" bans.
This legislation is unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court made clear in Stenberg v. Carhart that an abortion procedure ban such as this one cannot stand. Like the ban in Stenberg, this measure is unconstitutional because it is overbroad and lacks a required exception to protect women's health.
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