Partial-Birth Abortion: Sounds "worse than it is"?

Partial-Birth Abortion: Sounds “worse than it is”?



The other day I was at a library book sale. . .my heaven on earth.  I was browsing in the Politics section for that perfect find–a new release hardcover from one of my favorite authors or commentators and all for the bargain price of $2 (never found one, by the way).  A woman and her friend were across the row of books from me and I overheard the following statement:

“Partial-birth abortion is just a made up term in order to sound worse than it really is.”

I’m not kidding.

And I wanted so desperately to ask her, “Just what part of the partial-birth procedure is not EXACTLY as the name (aka “made up term”) implies?”  But I didn’t.  And now I’m blogging about it (venting about it) here.

I understand that not everyone accepts the name of this procedure–the AMA, for example, or Planned Parenthood (big surprise), which calls it an IDX, Intact Dilation and Extraction.

But what I take issue with is the complete spin that pro-choice proponents, activists, politicians and abortion providers perform here.  If you are upset that pro-lifers are calling it partial-birth abortion (upset that we are calling apples apples instead of papayas), then tell me exactly and specifically where a partial-birth abortion is NOT a partial-birth abortion.

Here is a description of the partial-birth abortion procedure, as appears of the National Right to Life website:

“This procedure is used to abort women who are 20 to 32 weeks pregnant — or even later into pregnancy.* Guided by ultrasound, the abortionist reaches into the uterus, grabs the unborn baby’s leg with forceps, and pulls the baby into the birth canal, except for the head, which is deliberately kept just inside the womb. (At this point in a partial-birth abortion, the baby is alive.) Then the abortionist jams scissors into the back of the baby’s skull and spreads the tips of the scissors apart to enlarge the wound. After removing the scissors, a suction catheter is inserted into the skull and the baby’s brains are sucked out. The collapsed head is then removed from the uterus.”

If you would like a definition from a neutral group, rather than pro-life advocates, here is the definition put out by the Congress in the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act:

“The Congress finds and declares the following:  (1) A moral, medical, and ethical consensus exists that the practice of performing a partial-birth abortion–an abortion in which a physician deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living, unborn child’s body until either the entire baby’s head is outside the body of the mother, or any part of the baby’s trunk  past the navel is outside the body of the mother and only the head remains inside the womb, for the purpose of performing an overt act (usually the puncturing of the back of the child’s skull and removing the baby’s brains) that the person knows will kill the partially delivered infant, performs this act, and then  completes delivery of the dead infant–is a gruesome and inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary and should be prohibited.”

Wikipedia says, “The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the terms ‘partial-birth abortion’ and ‘intact dilation and extraction’ are basically synonymous”.

Do I need to go on?  Would I have had to show this woman pictures and diagrams of partial-birth abortions to prove to her that babies really are partially born before they are brutally aborted?

I get frustrated when people would rather believe political spin than use their God-given intellect to acknowledge the facts.  I get frustrated when I see on people’s Facebook page the day after Dr. Tiller, the late-term abortionist, was murdered, “flags at half staff in honor of a hero.”  I get frustrated when people would rather hold on to things they incorrectly think are their “rights” rather than acknowledge that these innocent babies are born in God’s image and it’s their right to be protected.  But I have to remember that God calls me to love, even those people that frustrate me.  And I know that as much as he hates abortion, and as much as I believe he wants us to stand for truth, defend life and get actively involved to varying degrees, I also know that he also (not instead, though) wants us to love.

So I press on to love, even though I’m frustrated.

Source: Standing on Truth
Publish Date: August 8, 2009
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