President George W. Bush is expected to sign a bill the United States Senate passed banning one of the most horrendous procedures ever performed within the borders of the United States. For years, members of the extreme abortion rights movement have used fear and misinformation to protect this hideous use of medicine and they vowed to bring the battle to the courts.
Since Republicans took over the U.S. Congress in 1995, they have attempted to end the procedure known as partial-birth abortion. The bill cleared both houses in a bipartisan manner twice before, but former President Clinton pulled out the veto pin each time. The partial- birth abortion ban of 2003 was approved in the House by a 281-142 vote while the Senate passed it 64-34.
The legislation bans the procedure, generally performed in the second or third trimester, in which a fetus is partially delivered before a doctor punctures the skull. Doctors who violate the ban face up to two years in jail.
Opponents of the ban claim this is an attempt to curtail abortion rights by criminalizing a rare needed procedure. But the fact is this procedure is clearly “infanticide” as the late Democrat Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called it.
There is ample medical evidence and testimony saying that PBA is never medically needed. It does not even taken a medical professional to figure this out.
This procedure requires a baby to be partially delivered feet first and the abortionist leaves the head lodged in the cervix then punctures the baby’s skull with a surgical instrument. The abortionist must then insert a tube into the would and remove the baby’s brain with a suction machine causing the skull to collapse. How could it possibly endanger the mother further to finish the induced delivery?
But this compromise legislation even made exceptions and allows the procedure to be used if “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.”
Approximately 5,000 of these gruesome procedures are performed each year, according to Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers.
The Supreme Court previously ruled a Nebraska law banning the procedure to be unconstitutional, but the authors of this law fine-tuned the language and believe they have a law that will pass constitutional muster.
“We believe that this bill is constitutionally sound and obviously very, very necessary in terms of who we are as a society,” said Sen. Rick Santorum, the chief sponsor of the bill.
I am pro-life and anxiously await the day the nation comes to its moral senses and ends the shedding of innocent blood. I believe that as science and pre-natal technology continue to develop, abortion will become harder and harder to defend. It no longer will be seen as the removal of a clump of cells or a mere fetus, but as the life that it is.
The Declaration of Independence states that all are created equally. It took us entirely too long to include other races into this fold. I pray that we soon include the unborn as equals.
Until then I hope that even the pro-choice members of society recognize that this procedure is so blatantly wrong. Visible, viable lives are ended in a truly painful way. This law is a baby-step for America toward a culture of life.
We only can hope a majority of the Supreme Court will be filled with enough moral strength to begin to remove this stain on America’s soul. If tragically the Court holds this procedure to be constitutionally protected then it is clearly time to amend the document.
When will we finally take a stand for what is right?