On October 25, US President George Bush announced that he would sign into law the ban on very late-term abortions (mistakenly referred to as "partial-birth" by right-wingers) passed by the US Senate on October 21. When he does, it will be the first time in the three decades since the landmark Roe v Wade court case established a woman's right to access abortion, that an abortion procedure has been outlawed by the US Congress.
Versions of the bill were passed by both houses of Congress earlier this year, but a slight discrepancy in the wording forced it back again.
The bill's supporters claim that it will outlaw dilation and extraction abortions, generally known as D&X abortions, where the fetus is partially removed from the uterus into the birth canal before being aborted.
Such abortions, used only very late in pregnancy, are extremely rare. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America estimates that they account for around 0.24% of all US abortions, or around 2400 a year. In Washington state in 1995, 25,000 abortions were performed — just three of the patients were more than 20 weeks pregnant, and none used a D&X procedure.
A more common form of late-term abortion is the dilation and evacuation method (D&E), which takes place in the uterus. US abortion doctors fear, however, that practising D&E abortions may result in them being prosecuted under the new law.
"If you start a second trimester abortion, you don't know where the fetus will die", surgeon LeRoy Carhart told the Boston Globe on October 30. "If any part comes out before it dies, bang, I'm in jail. The bill bans all D&E procedures."
It is not an easy choice to abort a fetus very late in the pregnancy. The factors that drive women to do so are generally extreme. One of the most common is learning that the fetus is unlikely to survive birth, and/or is likely to be profoundly disabled.
One of those opposing the bill is Sue McClain. Five months into her first pregnancy, she discovered that her fetus' heart, liver and spleen were floating outside its abdomen, which had not closed properly. Although able to survive in the uterus, the fetus would never survive birth. If the bill had then been law, she believes that "I would have had to carry a baby I know was going to die. That would have been torture", she told the October 28 Boston Globe.
"This was not a flip decision", her husband Brian told the Globe. "Our other option was to give birth to a dead baby, piling trauma upon trauma. People think they have good reasons to protest the procedures, but they do have their place."
Around 5000 fetuses a year in the US develop hydrocephalis, which is usually not picked up until late in the second trimester. Mild hydrocephalis can often be cured after a successful birth. However, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists' Dr William Harrison, "It is not unusual for the fetal head to be as large as 50 centimetres in diameter and may contain... close to two gallons [7.56 litres] of cerebrospinal fluid."
In such cases, even if successfully born, the infant will not survive for long. Delivering the baby vaginally would cost the mother's life. The only alternative to an abortion is a ceasarian section, which poses considerably higher risks to the woman's health.
The Partial Birth Abortion Bill contains no exception to the ban in order to save a woman's life.
Many pro-choice advocates believe that the bill is unconstitutional, partly because it does not allow exceptions to preserve the life of the woman. Carhart will be the lead plaintiff in one court challenge when the bill becomes law.
BY ALISON DELLIT
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, November 5, 2003.
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