WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- In a move sure to re-ignite the debate over abortion in the United States, the Senate will soon approve a measure, which President Bush has pledged to sign into law, that will ban the late-trimester procedure that has come to be known pejoratively as "partial-birth abortion."
Although the medical procedure is clearly a troubling one from both a moral and political standpoint, the bill represents not only poor legal thinking but also the dangers of doctrinal thinking driving policymaking.
The legislation will make the performance of the procedure in the third trimester illegal in all instances -- even in cases when bringing the fetus to full term is a threat to a women's life -- and punishable by up to two years in jail.
Abortion rights groups argue that the bill is intended to be the first step toward reversing Roe vs. Wade, a fact that some advocates of the measure on Capitol Hill freely admit in private.
The bill does not even stand up to the test of agreeing with the view of the majority of U.S. citizens. Gallup has monitored public opinion about the procedure since 1996 and has consistently found around 60 percent of U.S. respondents support criminalization of the procedure, except when it is needed to save the life of the mother. The findings echo those of other pollsters.
President Clinton vetoed similar bills twice during his presidency, but those measures were markedly different because they contained a health exemption.
Anti-abortion rights zealots created the term "partial-birth abortion" and it is a misleading nomenclature meant to produce shrieks of horror from the uninformed and those opposed to all forms of abortion.
It is also known as dilation and extraction -- D&X -- and involves removing the fetus feet first, shrinking the head with a vacuum and delivering the dead fetus from the womb.
While the specifics are particularly grim, abortion via this method is much safer for the mother than the only other medically available option for ending a dangerous or failed pregnancy in the third trimester, a hysterectomy.
This procedure is a major surgery that mimics the delivery of a full-term fetus via cesarean section and results in much higher risks for the women.
The exact number of D&X procedures performed annually is impossible to estimate with accuracy because many states do not have strict reporting requirements, but it clearly represents only a small number of abortions performed in the United States.
More than 90 percent of abortions in the United States are performed in the first trimester. About 9 percent of the total occur in the second trimester of pregnancy with 1 percent in the final stages of pregnancy, reportedly often before the fetus is viable outside of the wound.
Among healthcare providers and health-policy experts, the generally accepted number for D&X abortions seems to be around 3,000 annually. This is both higher than some estimates purported by abortion rights crusaders and lower than those quoted by anti-abortion rights zealots.
Despite the lack of data, health-policy experts say the procedure is generally performed only in cases where the fetus has died, when continuing the pregnancy places the women's life in jeopardy, or when the fetus is severely malformed and unable to survive birth.
Some state medical association's rules prevent the procedure from being performed in late stages of pregnancy for reasons beyond the health of the mother, but it is generally recognized that it is sometimes performed as elective surgery to terminate an unwanted child.
The codification of such a standard makes since based upon a moral objection to terminating a fetus, but completely blocking access to a medically necessary procedure is not only ridiculous for Congress to do, it is hypocritical for anti-abortion activists.
This is because such a bill places lawmakers in the same position some anti-abortion rights activists claim abortions places abortion providers: the role of playing God, of choosing one life over another.
In addition, while the concept of terminating a life close to being viable outside the mother's body is horrifying to some, blocking the use of the procedure because of abuse of process is silly and contrary to principles many conservatives hold dear.
Do we as a society block the sale of guns because some nut may buy a gun and shoot people? Gun rights advocates try to make sure just this type of restrictions do not take hold and they remain pretty successful.
Not to say the support of gun rights excludes a pro-abortion rights stance, but the two do not often go hand-in hand.
While bans on the sale of certain types of firearms do exist and restrictions are in place to block access to some, a citizen of the United States without a criminal record can gain legal access to any number of firearms for personal protection or sport in many states.
In addition, the restrictions placed on guns have remained largely a state-level concern. The willingness of conservatives to push federal ban shows the willingness of conservatives to abandon key principles when it suits them best politically.
Although the far-right wing of the Republican Party has long been a meeting point for state-rights proponents and anti-abortion rights activists, one has to question whether they are becoming tough beliefs to balance under conservative orthodoxy.
Roe vs. Wade moved the question of the legality of abortion from the state to the federal level, but individual states retained control over access to the procedure within their boarders.
Seeing that one of the best ways to restrict abortion was to attack it at the state level, anti-abortion rights groups lobbied hard in the ensuring years to block access to the procedure, a largely successful effort.
According to the pro-abortion rights Alan Guttmacher Institute, more than 30 percent of women in the United States do not have access to an abortion provider in the county in which they live, with more than 80 percent of the counties not having healthcare providers that perform the procedure.
Eighteen states provide Medicaid coverage for abortions for reasons beyond incidents of rape, incest and life endangerment.
In less than a year after Republicans gained control of the White House and Congress, anti-abortion rights proponents on Capitol Hill have produced a successful measure that goes further than past attempts in restricting access through federal law and in disregard of the views of a majority of U.S. citizens.
This shows the danger of rigid, doctrinal thinking both in politics and policymaking.
If the ban withstands legal challenge, it would be the first time restrictions would be directly placed on a specific abortion procedure at the federal level since 1973, when the Supreme Court legalized the procedure nation wide with Roe vs. Wade.
However, groups including the American Civil Liberties Union have promised to challenge the law and they have a pretty strong case.
In 1992, the Supreme Court ruled a Nebraska ban on D&X abortions unconstitutional because it did not contain an exemption due to health concerns of the mother. The law was also found to be too vague, making it unclear as to exactly what medical procedures were banned.
This most recent federal ban defines the procedure quite broadly, including all cases where a living fetus is intentionally killed while partly or completely outside the mother's body with the age of the fetus and its viability not addressed.
The issue of a women's health is only addressed in language stating that the procedure is never medically necessary. This defies generally accepted medical belief and legal experts question the logic of the move given the Supreme Court's ruling.
One wild card in the legal challenge is the fact that the vote was split 5-4 against the Nebraska law and that a retirement or death of a justice provides the potential to change in the balance of the court.
Given that the challenge should take some time to run its way through the federal court system, it is possible that Bush could place another anti-abortion rights magistrate on the court, tilting the vote in favor of such a ban under any circumstance.
Support for the measure in the Senate and House among Democrats and moderate pro-abortion rights Republicans is attributable to the fact that it is in some ways considered a safe vote.
One Republican staffer said that with a court overturn expected, a vote in favor of the ban is an easy way to appease conservatives in the party without angering all but the most pro-abortion rights voters.
This thinking also makes it easier for Democrats seeking to attract Republican and independent swing voters in their states or districts without alienating too much of their core constituency.
