Senate vote about to occur on S. 3, the "Partial Birth Abortion" Ban bill

C-SPAN 2 live...the link's in my sig.

Frist is babbling about his support for it...this will be the last speech before the vote. :puke:

I've gotta run for dinner :(.

any bets?

except by Constitutional amendment.

parental notification is next, but Roe versus Wade was a ridiculous Supreme Court decision. and will have to be re-written eventually.

It clarified an important constitutional matter for me, are you bemoaning the loss of states rights?

if this is still going tonight, I'll make some links.

Basically, the point is that even many pro-choice lawyers find it an indefensible decision.

The Supreme Court does not write laws. It only interprets the Constitutionality of laws.

Therefore, how can the court rule that abortion is illegal without certain extenuating circumstances in the third trimester, yet completely legal in the first trimester? There is nothing in the Constitution that can justify such a law, and that is a court-written law, not an interpretation.

Also, they used the 14th Amendment to justify their decision.

The 14th Amendment came after the Civil War and was part of three amendments.

13th Amendment - ended slavery.
14th Amendment - made freed slaves citizens of their states, rejected Confederate government debt, and eliminated Confederate leaders from running for office.
15th Amendment - gave freed slaves the right to vote.

Now how the 14th Amendment can be stretched to guarantee the right to an abortion is just ridiculous.

Just read the amendment yourself and decide what it should have to do with abortion.

Or do words not mean anything. Can a court decide that the Amendment lowering the voting age to 18 can be interpreted to mean that cigars should be illegal if over 1/2 inch thick?

I'm pro-choice, but there is no question that Roe v Wade is a judicial fraud. Roe v Wade opened the door for the PBA, because it said the federal government could intervene in abortion matters. It opened a Pandora's box.

and under the right to privacy inferred therein.

Actually you didn't post the 14th Amendment. You posted a rough sketch of the 14th amendment that left out the most important part, the part which makes the 14th one of the most important:

Amendment XIV

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.


Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.


Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.


Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.


Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Bold and italics are mine, but the rest is as originally written.

what they were trying to do? They were granting citizenship rights to freed slaves. That's what the first sentence of section 1 does. The next few sentences tries to put some meat onto the first sentence saying states must treat its citizens equally.

The problem was that after the 13th Amendment, southern states ended slavery, but wouldn't allow the "freedmen" any rights of citizens.

So the 14th Amendment was passed to guarantee those "freedmen" citizenship and equal rights. Then the southern states allowed citizenship but refused the franchise, after which the 15th Amendment was passed.

That's what the amendments were passed to do. They were all three about the ending of slavery. Now it's being stretched into completely unrelated areas.

Thadeus Stevens and Charles Sumner would shake their heads in amazement. 'Abortion? No - we passed this amendment so slaves would have citizenship. Isn't it clear as day from the wording?'

most fundamental phrase in the 14th was "equal protection," which is what women deserve, too.

Are you aware of the gender issue that was provoked by the 14th Amendment? There was a firestorm over whether to include the language to apply to women, too.

Evidently the Supreme Court believes, indeed, that women also deserve equal protection. Wish some of the neandertals here saw it that way.

let's pass laws for those purposes. I don't like when pieces are taken from decisions and stretched to cover totally unrelated issues from what they were passed to cover.

How can you overstress the Civil War when discussing the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments? They were passed as a direct result of the Civil War and they were passed to enforce issues of slavery and freed slaves. They had nothing to do with abortion.

You want an amendment guaranteeing the right to an abortion. Then pass one. Don't take the second amendment and interpret the right to keep and bear arms to mean everyone has a constitutional right to an abortion. To me that's wrong.

have any exception for the health (or life) of the mother?

That's the point. This procedure is only used now when the life of the mother is at risk. So, in effect, this bill is saying that in cases where it is a choice between the mother and the child, the medical community is required to choose to save the child. It can not possibly stand.

In the past, even most pro-life republicans supported a 'life of the mother' exception. *shudder*

Do we really think that most of these republican senators... say Sen. Hutchinson, Sen. Kyle, Sen. Hagel, Sen. Allen (just random repubs), would really chose to sacrifice their own daughters if heaven forbid this situation ever arose in their family? Are they so politically callous to take this risk - or do they know that there will ALWAYS be an exception if you are rich enough? Or are they willing to "take the risk with their daughters lives" that the courts will turn it down?

.

There is a provision for the life of the mother. There just isn't a provision for the health of the mother. The Supreme Court may strike it down because the Supreme Court has previously stated that the health of the mother must be included. But, health includes mental health which is a pretty ridiculous reason to have a late term abortion.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c108:3:./temp/~c108go0Z7S:e17494:

`(a) Any physician who, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both. This subsection does not apply to a partial-birth abortion that is necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself. This subsection takes effect 1 day after the date of enactment of this chapter.

n/t.

with the mental health remark - it is up to the women what affects her health, not you. Everyone is different. At any rate, throwing in the mental health remark is a red herring - health is enough.

As for the link - it doesn't work. Yesterday I heard the life of the woman was not protected by this bill.

But if it is, not protecting the health is QUITE bad enough.

(In fact, the bill itself is bad enough.)

The ban would be pointless then because any woman could just say that she is depressed and she could then have the abortion. Mental health is just too difficult to define to include in legislation like this.

I really have issues with abortion even though I do believe it should be legal early on. However, late term abortion really are a problem for me. I just don't see how a fetus ,just weeks from birth, is any different from a 1 day old baby. I think that the woman's life should be the priority but when it could just interfere with her health, but not threaten her life, than I don't know if she should be able to have an abortion in the last few months.

I believe the media has been confused if the life of the mother is protected or not. I have heard a few times that it wasn't but the bill clearly says that it is. I saw that Jonathan Karl on CNN had to correct himself when he was reporting on it earlier today.

I'll repeat what Dean said, because he covered all the bases, and I can't improve on what he said. If you don't get it after reading this, you never will:

One of the most outrageous attacks on a woman’s right to choose is the so-called Partial Birth Abortion bill. As a physician, I know that there is no such thing in the medical literature as “partial birth abortion.” But there are rare times when a doctor is called upon to perform a late-term abortion to save a woman’s life or protect her from injury. Yet the House of Representatives recently made it a federal crime for a doctor to perform such medically necessary procedures. That bill will chill the practice of medicine and endanger the health of countless women.

There is no epidemic of third trimester abortions in the United States; the procedure is so rare that we have not had one in Vermont in the past four years. But this bill is worded so insidiously that it would outlaw many second-term abortions, even before a fetus is viable. That is a direct challenge to the logic of Roe v. Wade and every other Supreme Court abortion decision in the last 30 years, including the recent case striking down a Nebraska law almost identical to the bill passed by the House.

Make no mistake -- Republicans in Congress want to challenge the Supreme Court. They want to turn back the clock 30 years. This bill is one more step in the right wing’s relentless campaign to deprive women of their constitutional right to reproductive freedom. President Bush may soon have an opportunity to nominate one or more members of the Supreme Court, and the legal rights of women hang in the balance.

I think that abortion should be legal in the first trimester. I don't really like abortion but it is a personal choice early on. Somewhere along the pregnancy the fetus begins to develop significant brain activity. Now, I am not entirely certain exactly when then is but when that happens I have a real problem with abortion.

That fetus now has significant brain activity and I consider human brain activity the main thing that is why we should have rights. I can't support abortion when brain activity has begun because I feel that that fetus now should have the rights of a human and legislation should protect that fetus.

However, if the mother has a high risk of death than I do feel that an abortion can be performed. The priority should be the mother's life but the fetus should have rights too late in pregnancy.

I understand that most people here disagree with me but I don't understand how people can only focus on the rights of the mother and can ignore completely the fetus and its feelings and its rights.

Here's mine:

The woman has jurisdiction over her own body and any zygote/embryo/fetus contained therein.

This is a personal issue that must be decided by the woman on an individual basis.

No pregnancy is the same.

Most women do what most people think is right.

There is NO NEED for you or John Ashcroft or anyone else to have YOUR OPINONS trump HER OPINIONS.

Then I guess you don't support any laws? Because they are all based on opinions. I don't think that my opinion on a early stage abortion should trump the mother's because at that point is basically her body.

However, my opinion is that late term abortion isn't really different that killing an infant. I mean, how is a fetus that is two days away from birth any diffent from a two day old baby? It isn't, except for its location. That isn't an issue of opinion it is an issue of protecting the rights of what is basically a human being.

1) Actually, there was a law of the land that most people agreed with and thought was doing quite well. Roe v. Wade was fine as is, and fetuses two days away from birth were doing just fine. You're falling for the oldest trick in the book. Taking the extreme red herring case and going forth. This is political - a right wing power/money grab that will, if allowed to stand, apart from gaining votes and money from extreme individuals for a corrupt regime, diminish the rights of FEMALE CITIZENS (who happen to be human beings that are also - unlike fetuses - citizens of the United States.) And guess what's next on their agenda after abortion is completely outlawed - and you're shamefully kidding yourself if you don't think this is just the first step - even they admit it - yes, birth control. Bush is against birth control.

2) Do some tours of inner cities and other depressed areas and see what life is like for people living in poverty. And see what it's like for very severely disabled children and their parents. And abused girls. Live their lives for a few days, even, and I guarantee you won't support this. Know what it's like to have your rights as citizens taken away from you by a state that knows what is best for you, or put away for doing what you thought was best and right between you and your God. Imagine what it's like to be at John Ashcroft's mercy - spend some time in jail or in a mental hospital, which is where women getting back alley abortions will be a few years down the line thanks to what Tommy and his buddies started today - if they don't die first. And look beyond this nation - spend some time in third world nations where women are having so many children they die from it, leaving children to starvation and abuse. Bush has made birth control a reason for not extending aid to women - just ask those at the UN, who kicked the US off the council for the first time.

I've read everything you have written in the thread and still can't see anywhere that you have been able to justify a late term abortion in a case where the mother's health is not at risk. How can any woman need six months to make up her mind whether or not to carry the child or abort?

Surely you cannot defend a late term abortion solely on the idea that a woman's rights always supercede those of the fetus in her womb no matter what the reason for the abortion.

One more question: How is restricting late-term abortions a money grab?

with a preface - surely you are aware some of us are looking askance at your 5 posts on DU, all of them anti-choice

but I'll bite

1) Roe v. Wade already restricted late term abortions

"In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court divided the nine months of pregnancy into three stages called trimesters. It ruled that a state cannot regulate abortions in the first trimester, except for requiring that the doctor be licensed by the state. The court ruled that during the second trimester, the state may prevent a woman from having an abortion, but only to protect the woman's health. It ruled that in the third trimester, the state may prohibit abortions entirely, except when an abortion is needed to save the woman's life."

2) see 1)

3) look up "religious right" and "political contributions" on Google (also look for data on how the Republicans need the religious right margin to win elections)

I suppose that is suppose to diminish my credibility in the eyes of the forum. Nice try.

It is not the business of the Federal Government to legislate what a woman or man can or can't do to their body as long as it does no harm to anyone else. If you wish to have a railroad spike driven through your bottom lip to make a social or fashion statement, that's your business. However, when the choices a person makes could endanger the life of another human being then it's the responsibility of gov't to protect the innocent.

Whatever you think about late-term abortion, don't ever lose sight of the fact that many, many babies, my niece included, are delivered prematurely and go on to live normal, healthy, happy lives. No one has the right to decide that a fetus becomes a life at six, seven, eight, nine months. That fetus has rights too.

Life is a miracle. It's sacred. It should be protected.

Yeah better if they were never born.

I thoroughly second everything you said.

it is not mentioned or even hinted at in the Constitution, and therefore the Tenth Amendment should apply.

Each state legislature should enact its own laws on the issue and let the voters decide.

is depression. If depression can be a cause for the health provision to go into effect, then the ban would have no meaning, because what woman who is pregnant and not happy to be pregnant is not depressed?

I simply don't understand why he is tolerated. I really do not.

Here's what a real Democrat - Howard Dean - says about it:

One of the most outrageous attacks on a woman’s right to choose is the so-called Partial Birth Abortion bill. As a physician, I know that there is no such thing in the medical literature as “partial birth abortion.” But there are rare times when a doctor is called upon to perform a late-term abortion to save a woman’s life or protect her from injury. Yet the House of Representatives recently made it a federal crime for a doctor to perform such medically necessary procedures. That bill will chill the practice of medicine and endanger the health of countless women.

There is no epidemic of third trimester abortions in the United States; the procedure is so rare that we have not had one in Vermont in the past four years. But this bill is worded so insidiously that it would outlaw many second-term abortions, even before a fetus is viable. That is a direct challenge to the logic of Roe v. Wade and every other Supreme Court abortion decision in the last 30 years, including the recent case striking down a Nebraska law almost identical to the bill passed by the House.

Make no mistake -- Republicans in Congress want to challenge the Supreme Court. They want to turn back the clock 30 years. This bill is one more step in the right wing’s relentless campaign to deprive women of their constitutional right to reproductive freedom. President Bush may soon have an opportunity to nominate one or more members of the Supreme Court, and the legal rights of women hang in the balance.

I read in one of the articles posted today that Santorum is looking for 67 people to override a promised veto. Why is there a veto pending?

Bush will definitely sign this. Clinton had vetoed the bill two times during his administration.

The Administration strongly supports enactment of S. 3, which would ban an abhorrent procedure commonly known as partial-birth abortion. The bill is narrowly tailored and exempts those procedures necessary to save the life of the mother.

Partial-birth abortion is a late-term abortion procedure that is not accepted by the medical community. Approximately 30 States have attempted to ban it. The Administration strongly believes that enactment of S. 3 is both morally imperative and constitutionally permissible.

The Administration strongly opposes any amendment to the bill that would limit its application to a time after the child is determined to be viable, which could allow this procedure to be used as late as the fifth or sixth months of pregnancy, when most partial birth abortions are performed. The Administration supports the exception for procedures necessary to save the life of the mother, but strongly opposes any amendments to create additional exceptions because these exceptions may create open-ended loopholes and allow use of the procedure even in the third-trimester.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/legislative/sap/108-1/s3sap-s.pdf

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

Commonly known? Morally Imperative? Constitutionally Permissible?

Then again, this administration doesn't believe in the Bill of Rights, and Roe v. Wade is based off of the Ninth Amendment....

Somebody on TV (Wolf Blitzer?) said it had an exception for the life of the mother, but not the health of the mother. Of course, since it's Wolf, there's only a 50 percent chance he's right.

If there is an exception for life of the mother, my next question would be, would physicians be allowed discretion to make this determination, or would the physician have to get a court order?

If the former is true, then, in effect, nothin' much will change.

My other question is, how do they define "partial birth abortion"? Late second-trimester abortions can be and are performed in ways that do not involve withdrawing the fetus's skull and collapsing it.

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

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.

(2) Rather than being an abortion procedure that is embraced by the medical community, particularly among physicians who routinely perform other abortion procedures, partial-birth abortion remains a disfavored procedure that is not only unnecessary to preserve the health of the mother, but in fact poses serious risks to the long-term health of women and in some circumstances, their lives. As a result, at least 27 States banned the procedure as did the United States Congress which voted to ban the procedure during the 104th, 105th, and 106th Congresses.

(3) In Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914, 932 (2000), the United States Supreme Court opined `that significant medical authority supports the proposition that in some circumstances, would be the safest procedure' for pregnant women who wish to undergo an abortion. Thus, the Court struck down the State of Nebraska's ban on partial-birth abortion procedures, concluding that it placed an `undue burden' on women seeking abortions because it failed to include an exception for partial-birth abortions deemed necessary to preserve the `health' of the mother.

(4) In reaching this conclusion, the Court deferred to the Federal district court's factual findings that the partial-birth abortion procedure was statistically and medically as safe as, and in many circumstances safer than, alternative abortion procedures.

(5) However, substantial evidence presented at the Stenberg trial and overwhelming evidence presented and compiled at extensive Congressional hearings, much of which was compiled after the district court hearing in Stenberg, and thus not included in the Stenberg trial record, demonstrates that a partial-birth abortion is never necessary to preserve the health of a woman, poses significant health risks to a woman upon whom the procedure is performed and is outside the standard of medical care.

(6) Despite the dearth of evidence in the Stenberg trial court record supporting the district court's findings, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and the Supreme Court refused to set aside the district court's factual findings because, under the applicable standard of appellate review, they were not `clearly erroneous'. A finding of fact is clearly erroneous `when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed'. Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, North Carolina, 470 U.S. 564, 573 (1985). Under this standard, `if the district court's account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, the court of appeals may not reverse it even though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently'. Id. at 574.

(7) Thus, in Stenberg, the United States Supreme Court was required to accept the very questionable findings issued by the district court judge--the effect of which was to render null and void the reasoned factual findings and policy determinations of the United States Congress and at least 27 State legislatures.

(8) However, under well-settled Supreme Court jurisprudence, the United States Congress is not bound to accept the same factual findings that the Supreme Court was bound to accept in Stenberg under the `clearly erroneous' standard. Rather, the United States Congress is entitled to reach its own factual findings--findings that the Supreme Court accords great deference--and to enact legislation based upon these findings so long as it seeks to pursue a legitimate interest that is within the scope of the Constitution, and draws reasonable inferences based upon substantial evidence.

(9) In Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641 (1966), the Supreme Court articulated its highly
deferential review of Congressional factual findings when it addressed the constitutionality of section 4(e) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Regarding Congress' factual determination that section 4(e) would assist the Puerto Rican community in `gaining nondiscriminatory treatment in public services,' the Court stated that `t was for Congress, as the branch that made this judgment, to assess and weigh the various conflicting considerations * * *. It is not for us to review the congressional resolution of these factors. It is enough that we be able to perceive a basis upon which the Congress might resolve the conflict as it did. There plainly was such a basis to support section 4(e) in the application in question in this case.'. Id. at 653.


(10) Katzenbach's highly deferential review of Congress' factual conclusions was relied upon by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia when it upheld the `bail-out' provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, (42 U.S.C. 1973c), stating that `congressional fact finding, to which we are inclined to pay great deference, strengthens the inference that, in those jurisdictions covered by the Act, state actions discriminatory in effect are discriminatory in purpose'. City of Rome, Georgia v. U.S., 472 F. Supp. 221 (D.D.C. 1979) aff'd City of Rome, Georgia v. U.S., 446 U.S. 156 (1980).

(11) The Court continued its practice of deferring to congressional factual findings in reviewing the constitutionality of the must-carry provisions of the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992. See Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission, 512 U.S. 622 (1994) (Turner I) and Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission, 520 U.S. 180 (1997) (Turner II). At issue in the Turner cases was Congress' legislative finding that, absent mandatory carriage rules, the continued viability of local broadcast television would be `seriously jeopardized'. The Turner I Court recognized that as an institution, `Congress is far better equipped than the judiciary to `amass and evaluate the vast amounts of data' bearing upon an issue as complex and dynamic as that presented here'. 512 U.S. at 665-66. Although the Court recognized that `the deference afforded to legislative findings does `not foreclose our independent judgment of the facts bearing on an issue of constitutional law,' its `obligation to exercise independent judgment when First Amendment rights are implicated is not a license to reweigh the evidence de novo, or to replace Congress' factual predictions with our own. Rather, it is to assure that, in formulating its judgments, Congress has drawn reasonable inferences based on substantial evidence.' Id. at 666.

(12) Three years later in Turner II, the Court upheld the `must-carry' provisions based upon Congress' findings, stating the Court's `sole obligation is `to assure that, in formulating its judgments, Congress has drawn reasonable inferences based on substantial evidence.' 520 U.S. at 195. Citing its ruling in Turner I, the Court reiterated that `e owe Congress' findings deference in part because the institution `is far better equipped than the judiciary to `amass and evaluate the vast amounts of data' bearing upon' legislative questions,' id. at 195, and added that it `owe Congress' findings an additional measure of deference out of respect for its authority to exercise the legislative power.' Id. at 196.

(13) 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. Congress was informed by extensive hearings held during the 104th, 105th, 107th, and 108th Congresses and passed a ban on partial-birth abortion in the 104th, 105th, and 106th Congresses. These findings reflect the very informed judgment of the Congress 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, and should, therefore, be banned.

(14) Pursuant to the testimony received during extensive legislative hearings during the 104th, 105th, 107th, and 108th Congresses, Congress finds and declares that:

(A) Partial-birth abortion poses serious risks to the health of a woman undergoing the procedure. Those risks include, among other things: an increase in a woman's risk of suffering from cervical incompetence, a result of cervical dilation making it difficult or impossible for a woman to successfully carry a subsequent pregnancy to term; an increased risk of uterine rupture, abruption, amniotic fluid embolus, and trauma to the uterus as a result of
converting the child to a footling breech position, a procedure which, according to a leading obstetrics textbook, `there are very few, if any, indications for * * * other than for delivery of a second twin'; and a risk of lacerations and secondary hemorrhaging due to the doctor blindly forcing a sharp instrument into the base of the unborn child's skull while he or she is lodged in the birth canal, an act which could result in severe bleeding, brings with it the threat of shock, and could ultimately result in maternal death.


(B) There is no credible medical evidence that partial-birth abortions are safe or are safer than other abortion procedures. No controlled studies of partial-birth abortions have been conducted nor have any comparative studies been conducted to demonstrate its safety and efficacy compared to other abortion methods. Furthermore, there have been no articles published in peer-reviewed journals that establish that partial-birth abortions are superior in any way to established abortion procedures. 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.

(C) A prominent medical association has concluded that partial-birth abortion is `not an accepted medical practice', that it has `never been subject to even a minimal amount of the normal medical practice development,' that `the relative advantages and disadvantages of the procedure in specific circumstances remain unknown,' and that `there is no consensus among obstetricians about its use'. The association has further noted that partial-birth abortion is broadly disfavored by both medical experts and the public, is `ethically wrong,' and `is never the only appropriate procedure'.

(D) Neither the plaintiff in Stenberg v. Carhart, nor the experts who testified on his behalf, have identified a single circumstance during which a partial-birth abortion was necessary to preserve the health of a woman.

(E) The physician credited with developing the partial-birth abortion procedure has testified that he has never encountered a situation where a partial-birth abortion was medically necessary to achieve the desired outcome and, thus, is never medically necessary to preserve the health of a woman.

(F) A ban on the partial-birth abortion procedure will therefore advance the health interests of pregnant women seeking to terminate a pregnancy.

(G) In light of this overwhelming evidence, Congress and the States have a compelling interest in prohibiting partial-birth abortions. In addition to promoting maternal health, such a prohibition will draw a bright line that clearly distinguishes abortion and infanticide, that preserves the integrity of the medical profession, and promotes respect for human life.

(H) Based upon Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), a governmental interest in protecting the life of a child during the delivery process arises by virtue of the fact that during a partial-birth abortion, labor is induced and the birth process has begun. This distinction was recognized in Roe when the Court noted, without comment, that the Texas parturition statute, which prohibited one from killing a child `in a state of being born and before actual birth,' was not under attack. This interest becomes compelling as the child emerges from the maternal body. A child that is completely born is a full, legal person entitled to constitutional protections afforded a `person' under the United States Constitution. Partial-birth abortions involve the killing of a child that is in the process, in fact mere inches away from, becoming a `person'. Thus, the government has a heightened interest in protecting the life of the partially-born child.

(I) This, too, has not gone unnoticed in the medical community, where a prominent medical association has recognized that partial-birth abortions are `ethically different from other destructive abortion techniques because the fetus, normally twenty weeks or longer in gestation, is killed outside of the womb'. According to this medical association, the `partial birth' gives the fetus an autonomy which separates it from the right of the woman to choose treatments for her own body'.

(J) Partial-birth abortion also confuses the medical, legal, and ethical duties of physicians to preserve and promote life, as the physician acts directly against the physical life of a child, whom he or she had just delivered, all but the head, out of the womb, in order to end that life. Partial-birth abortion thus appropriates the terminology and techniques used by obstetricians in the delivery of living children--obstetricians who preserve and protect the life of the mother and the child--and instead uses those techniques to end the life of the partially-born child.

(K) Thus, by aborting a child in the manner that purposefully seeks to kill the child after he or she has begun the process of birth, partial-birth abortion undermines the public's perception of the appropriate role of a physician during the delivery process, and perverts a process during which life is brought into the world, in order to destroy a partially-born child.

(L) The gruesome and inhumane nature of the partial-birth abortion procedure and its disturbing similarity to the killing of a newborn infant promotes a complete disregard for infant human life that can only be countered by a prohibition of the procedure.

(M) The vast majority of babies killed during partial-birth abortions are alive until the end of the procedure. It is a medical fact, however, that unborn infants at this stage can feel pain when subjected to painful stimuli and that their perception of this pain is even more intense than that of newborn infants and older children when subjected to the same stimuli. Thus, during a partial-birth abortion procedure, the child will fully experience the pain associated with piercing his or her skull and sucking out his or her brain.

(N) Implicitly approving such a brutal and inhumane procedure by choosing not to prohibit it will further coarsen society to the humanity of not only newborns, but all vulnerable and innocent human life, making it increasingly difficult to protect such life. Thus, Congress has a compelling interest in acting--indeed it must act--to prohibit this inhumane procedure.

(O) For these reasons, Congress finds that partial-birth abortion is never medically indicated to preserve the health of the mother; is in fact unrecognized as a valid abortion procedure by the mainstream medical community; poses additional health risks to the mother; blurs the line between abortion and infanticide in the killing of a partially-born child just inches from birth; and confuses the role of the physician in childbirth and should, therefore, be banned.

SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTIONS.

(a) IN GENERAL- Title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after chapter 73 the following:

`CHAPTER 74--PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTIONS
`Sec.
`1531. Partial-birth abortions prohibited.



`Sec. 1531. Partial-birth abortions prohibited

`(a) Any physician who, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both. This subsection does not apply to a partial-birth abortion that is necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself. This subsection takes effect 1 day after the enactment.

`(b) As used in this section--

`(1) the term `partial-birth abortion' means an abortion in which the person performing the abortion--

`(A) deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus; and

`(B) performs the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the partially delivered living fetus; and

`(2) the term `physician' means a doctor of medicine or osteopathy legally authorized to practice medicine and surgery by the State in which the doctor performs such activity, or any other individual legally authorized by the State to perform abortions: Provided, however, That any individual who is not a physician or not otherwise legally authorized by the State to perform abortions, but who nevertheless directly performs a partial-birth abortion, shall be subject to the provisions of this section.

`(c)(1) The father, if married to the mother at the time she receives a partial-birth abortion procedure, and if the mother has not attained the age of 18 years at the time of the abortion, the maternal grandparents of the fetus, may in a civil action obtain appropriate relief, unless the pregnancy resulted from the plaintiff's criminal conduct or the plaintiff consented to the abortion.

`(2) Such relief shall include--

`(A) money damages for all injuries, psychological and physical, occasioned by the violation of this section; and

`(B) statutory damages equal to three times the cost of the partial-birth abortion.

`(d)(1) A defendant accused of an offense under this section may seek a hearing before the State Medical Board on whether the physician's conduct was necessary to save the life of the mother whose life was endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.

`(2) The findings on that issue are admissible on that issue at the trial of the defendant. Upon a motion of the defendant, the court shall delay the beginning of the trial for not more than 30 days to permit such a hearing to take place.

`(e) A woman upon whom a partial-birth abortion is performed may not be prosecuted under this section, for a conspiracy to violate this section, or for an offense under section 2, 3, or 4 of this title based on a violation of this section.'.

(b) CLERICAL AMENDMENT- The table of chapters for part I of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the item relating to chapter 73 the following new item:

`74. Partial-birth abortions 1531'.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/R?cp108:FLD010:@1(hr288):

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

The language reeks of the extreme conservative Republican "religious right" rhetoric. I can't believe a Democrat would vote for a bill with such language. This is NOT a theocracy - did they forget? And did they lose all sight of their legal training to make such a thing law?

I didn't notice the post above.

What difference does it make whether or not the skull is collapsed before the fetus is removed from the womb? A dead fetus is a dead fetus. I can't imagine why it is ever necessary to kill an otherwise healthy baby in the third trimester. What is the benefit of that?

it's not a baby until after it is born.

What is the benefit of that?

Looks like we are both equally befuddled.

If the fetus could be removed and be raised in an incubator then why wouldn't that be the best thing for everyone involved?

why would a woman ever want to do this?

And sure enough most women WOULDN'T. That still doesn't mean that when it would be necessary to protect the life OR health of the mother, a viable medical procedure should be banned. My guess is most doctors wouldn't recommend a "late term abortion" or "partial birth" abortion because these procedures carry their own risk.

That said, why shouldn't these choices be available if and when such times arose when a woman has a certain disease or whatever else, where the health of the woman would be degraded more by bearing the child than by performing this procedure?

In short, it's a medical procedure that is performed VERY RARELY. Most women probably wouldn't consider it, unless it was the direst of circumstances. Why do anti choicers (and after the stem cell issue controversey I will NEVER again call these people Pro Life) believe that women would like to have an abortion? Abortions carry their own risks and the key here is for a woman to be educated enough about their own body, to make the right decision (along with a doctor). I would definetely trust a doctor's judgment over Tom DeLay's regarding medicine. Also ultimately, the mother's life and wellbeing trumps that of the fetus. This bill, and others like it are definetely a ploy by legislaters to increase control of how people live their lives. Enough legistlating how medicine is practised!

Geeze.

and the point of the operation is not to end up with a live baby. It's to end up with a dead fetus.

What a farce this is!

A group of primarily white, rich men voting with feigned seriousness to overide the sacred doctor/patient relationship and writing into enforcible law no consideration for the very life of the mother!

What a bunch of maggots!

But the real questions are
1/ How long will it last before it has an injunction against it?
and
2/ How long will it take the SCOTUS to deliver an 'unconstitutional' verdict when they get it?

See also the previous thread from today.

Eileen -
Eileen's Always In Process Web Page[br />

If he must play DINO to get elected, let him do it on the sidelines.

His ineffective so-called "leadership" cost us the Senate in 2002 and if we win the presidency in 2004, it will be in spite of him, not in any way because of him. It's sad to think this is the best we can do for a leader. We need a REAL leader who will fight and vote for Democratic party platform positions. We need someone to roar like a tiger, and all we have in him is a scared little mouse.

whatever

Much appreciated.

:hi:

Because it paves the way for all abortion to be illegal.


I say, if these FReeper assholes want to force everybody to view something one way because it supposedly says so in the Bible, then maybe they should be consistant.

They want to say that the life of a fetus is just as valid as any other human life?
Fine.
Why don't they prove their convictions by making a miscarriage punishable as involuntary manslaughter?

Like me.

Current law is not restrictive enough in my opinion. Most people support ending partial birth abortion and will also support parental notification.

If the Republicans try to ban all abortions, then they will be the ones who have gone too far and they will be punished.

...the other one got 150 responses very quickly.

- I'm very disappointed in the 'Dems' that voted for this Bill. They're either Bush* ass kissers or don't understand the ramifications of this being part of the RRWingers plan to ban abortions.

- No wonder more and more Dems are going independent.

but now I do. I'm THIS close to leaving the party. The camel puts up with the straws as there are more and more, but damned if I want to sit by and watch my back break.

with Q, and a few others around here who are now harsh dem critics. Back before the war resolution and the midterm elections - there was a lot of dem bashing (esp dlc/leadership). A group got so angry at the bashing that they became very loud/vocal anti-dem-basher-bashers (doees that make sense?) Believe it or not... Q was in this camp. Rigidly so (sorry Q, that was my read).

Then came a series of votes (for many the turning point was the war resolution), actions, and some questionably run campaigns - we read papers from the DLC cite.. and saw recommendations like... criticize the worst of the corprorate corruption (like enron) but not too harshly.... dont use this to strike at the republicans.... and so on - on many dem issues... to where a few candidates ran campaigns that seemed to be only centered on Social Security - as if that was the only "safe" issue. At this time - many vocal - bash the dem bashers - did a big flip. Became part of the vocal critical chorus. THAT is what is remarkable at times about Qs outspoken (and at times - reflexive) criticism.

I'm not flip flopping. I'm not responding to Q. This is what ~I~ think.

I am quite tired of watching this party disintegrate. They have half a nation of people who embrace the platform and who are desperate for leaders, and it just is not happening. I watch Ted Kennedy speaking out day after day and think - that's a leader. I watch Howard Dean sticking his neck out day after day and I think - that's a fighter. But if I look too hard at the rest (and sometimes not hard at all), it's really disappointing. I want to see a Senate full of Ted Kennedys and Howard Deans. And to see someone like Tom Daschle in a LEADERSHIP role has been quite appalling to me for a long time.

No, I'm merely remarking that I've reached the point Q likely reached a while back. That's all.

just didn't know if you had seen Q go through his/her 'transformation.' The real dilemna is that on the one hand there is so much propoganda out there that even when most of the public agrees with many progressive positions - they don't vote for it (or don't vote at all), leaving many candidates tentative, caustious, and necessarily (?!) calculating.

However in these calculations there seems to be less and less consideration going towards those whose views are what was considered mainstream democrat a short 15 years ago. We are now left wing - or according to some at DU - fringe. Fringe? My views are the same as they were 15 years ago and back then I was a progressive but pragmatic "New Democrat" (later morphed into the DLC). I get the balancing act - but sometimes think there is a foolish discounting of the real base with the belief "who else will they vote for" (the anger over this approach could be heard in several of the African American communities in which I have lived over the past 12 years)... while pandering to the soft middle by playing to the far religious right. While I know it is much more complicated than this, I also know that some flawed strategies have pushed some of the behaviors.

When you don't have power - you can't draft laws.

But you don't have to cede the framing of most issues to the right in a way that has been market tested to the public as a way to sell sometimes unpopular ideas (see Josh Greens "The OTher War Room" for info on how the Bushies use polling - to test ways to sell what they are already planning on doing - it was in the Washington Monthly in April or May of 2002).

It is SO discouraging at times.

- I was sure after the 2000 selection and insult to Democracy...that ALL Dems would come out fighting. But I was wrong. From the Patriot Act to war resolutions for blatantly illegal preemptive invasions...the party simply fell apart.

- Hell...that's why I joined DU. Here was a group of people really PISSED about the outright theft of an election. We saw what was happening...despite what was being reported in the 'free press'.

- I held on for as long as I could. I bashed the Dem bashers and called them disloyal. I advised that all we had to do was give them a chance...to overcome the shock of a coup. I waited. Nothing.

- And now we see the virtual disenigration of our rights and civil liberties. We're witnesses to the end of the land of the 'free and the brave' and the beginning of the corporate state. I'm not sure how this happened. But I now realize the Neocons couldn't have done it without the help of the Democratic party.

I'm considering switching to Independent after the primary.

If they can't use the CONSIDERABLE advantage they have and make things go their way - our way - then they don't deserve me as a member.

This speaks to it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/05/16_mia.html

The Democratic party has at its disposal a devastating array of issues, foreign and domestic, moral and economic, and yet there it sits, at best dumb-frozen and impotent, and at worst complicit in the crimes and outrages of the Bush Administration.

...{snip - a partial list of Bush's BS that a child could use to its advantage}

Nor is this the end of it. But you know all that by now. And therein is the final outrage: none of this is secret. All these atrocities, these betrayals of our democracy, are known or knowable to all who bother to examine the condition of our politics and economy today.

Meanwhile, the Democrats, the opposition party, refuse to oppose, in the apparent belief that their winning strategy is to adopt the pose of a pale and reluctant caricature of the Republican party. Still worse, their tactics are poor imitations of those of the GOP, as DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe desperately seeks out corporate fat-cats for the party to sell out to. This is plain stupid: the Democrats will never win by playing on GOP turf with GOP rules...

This was actually meant to be a "Heads Up" thread that the vote was occuring.

:shrug:

All that I have read about dilation and extraction abortion says that the procedure is currently (pre-ban) only performed when the health of the mother is at stake.

I have also read the fetus is not dead until some (or most, in the case of a breech birth) portion is outside of the mother.

My question is this: are there medical reasons, that improve the health of the mother or lessen the danger to her life, that require the fetus to be terminated prior to birth versus just delivering the fetus (since it's partially delivered anyway)?

I do not understand this procedure and would like to understand the medical justification. Thanks, doctors!

And so far no one can answer that question. I have received feeble responses to my posts that attempt to steer the discussion away from the answer to your question.

Somebody step up to the plate and explain why it's necessary to kill the fetus in order to save the mothers' life?

as to why this would have to be legistlated. I trust doctors in having better judgement over congresspeople when it comes to medical procedures. I doubt any doctor would recommend an unecessarily harsh procedure as this if it were unecessary.

http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/hydrceph.html

According to Dr. William F. Harrison, a diplomate of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology writing in the Arkansas _Times_ a weekly newspaper, "approximately 1 in 2000 fetuses develop hydrocephalus while in the womb." Usually not discovered until LATE in the second trimester, "it is not unusual for the fetal head to be as large as 50 centimeters (nearly 20 inches) in diameter and may contain ... close to two gallons ... of cerebrospinal fluid." (The average *adult* skull is about 7 to 8" in diameter.)

snip

The collapsing of the fetal skull is to allow the removal without the brutal rupturing of a woman's uterine passage or necessitating a classic cesarean section that poses its own dangers to a woman and any future pregnancies.

snip

Approximately 500 women face this procedure each year. Mild to moderate hydrocephalus can be sometimes be treated in utero and the fetus saved, and some very mild cases can be delivered and treated after birth. Those which have advanced or severe hydrocephalus cannot. Without the "partial birth" abortions, their births can easily kill their mothers with no chance of fetal survival.



additional info here

http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_pba1.htm#why

The easiest way to answer your question is to direct you to a short analysis of the current bill - here - including it's inherent 'poison pill' effect on women and physicians who provide their services for them.

The Phantom Procedure is not D&X which is an actual medical abortion procedure most frequrently performed in the middle of the pregnancy (Mid Term Abortion) and pre viability.

Eileen
- Eileen`s Always In Process Web Page

I was in washington at the capitol watching it from the Senate gallery. All that's left is probably to pass the joint committee resolution. Daschle already sold out his vote months ago.