A Victory in the Abortion Battles

The same week of the terrible and horrific shootings at Virginia Tech there was another story that deserves our attention. By a 5-4 vote the Supreme Court affirmed a bill banning a particular form of late term abortion, known as the “D & X”— or dilation and extraction method. To critics, this procedure has rightly been labeled “partial birth abortion” and even “infanticide.”

Certain groups are denouncing the Court’s ruling as chipping away at women’s rights and previous legal constitutional precedent. However, the original Roe v. Wade ruling was built on shaky legal foundations and further abortion rulings left the door open for further debate. And if we want to make precedent the key point of this debate let’s not forget that the Supreme Court once also upheld laws legalizing slavery and eugenics (the eugenic movement was a late 19th and early 20th century movement designed to clean out the gene pool of undesirable elements of society by forcing compulsorily sterilization). So, sometimes the Court gets it wrong. Did they in this recent ruling as well?

It’s interesting to note that the vast majority of Americans oppose partial birth abortions—including many people who are normally “pro-choice” in earlier term abortions. And they oppose the procedure for good reason. Here is a technical description from Wikipedia:

“Preliminary procedures are performed over a period of two to three days, to gradually dilate the cervix using laminaria tents (sticks of seaweed which absorb fluid and swell). Sometimes drugs such as synthetic pitocin are used to induce labor. Once the cervix is sufficiently dilated, the doctor uses an ultrasound and forceps to grasp the fetus' leg. The fetus is turned to a breech position, if necessary, and the doctor pulls one or both legs out of the birth canal, causing what is referred to by some people as the 'partial birth' of the fetus. The doctor subsequently extracts the rest of the fetus, usually without the aid of forceps, leaving only the head still inside the birth canal. An incision is made at the base of the skull and a suction catheter is inserted into the cut. The brain tissue is removed, which causes the skull to collapse and allows the fetus to pass more easily through the birth canal. The placenta is removed and the uterine wall is vaccum aspirated using a suction curette.”

While it’s important to point out that pro-life groups sometimes exaggerate the instances of these procedures—partial birth abortions are only responsible for 1.4% of all abortions each year—the fact still remains that 2,000-3,000 of these abortions were occurring each year. Each year late-term abortions were killing just under the number of people who died during the 9/11 attacks.

Debates on life and death issues should not be spun and politicized, and many who politicize these issues are heavily inconsistent themselves. In political debates, those who usually are most likely to talk about defending the rights of the poor and downtrodden are typically the most enthusiastic about abortion rights. Inversely, those who make the biggest deal about defending the right to life are usually the loudest and quickest to want to bomb this or that country, or increase the frequency of the death penalty.

Nevertheless, the issue here does not and should not center on women’s rights vs. an oppressive society. Many doctors contend that there is never a valid reason to receive a late-term abortion and contrary to other medical groups argue that risks to the mother’s life have been minimized if not eliminated. Also, just because the fetus is dependant upon the mother does not mean that it is nothing more than a “parasite,” as some pro-abortion individuals allege. If that was the case, then many of our most vulnerable citizens today who are dependant upon others are nothing more than “parasites” as well and can also be eliminated for society’s convenience.

The arguments for partial birth abortion pale in comparison to the arguments against. This time the Supreme Court got it right, and those who cared about this issue should be thankful for this victory.