Mona Charen on Abortion

On November 7, 2003 ,   Mona Charen's column was
titled: "The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Is a Small 
Victory."  Go to:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/mc20031107.shtml
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  "As someone who has followed the partial-birth
   abortion controversy for 10 years, I was gratified
   to see President Bush sign legislation banning the
   procedure. Congress has twice before passed simi-
   lar legislation, but President Clinton vetoed them
   both times. He justified his decision with indignant
   self-righteousness, saying that the ban would
   endanger the health and future fertility of women.
   Both were false. But then, from the beginning, this
   issue has brought out the worst in the pro-abortion
   lobby.

  "They began by claiming that no such procedure
   existed. When this fiction was punctured, NARAL
   and Planned Parenthood substituted the argument
   that the procedure was extremely rare, performed
   only a couple of hundred times a year, and then
   only in cases where the life of the mother was at
   stake. When this claim was discredited by investi-
   gative reporting showing that the true figure was
   closer to several thousand than a couple of hundred,
   the advocates attacked again, this time claiming the 
   baby died a painless death before the procedure even 
   got started due to the anesthesia administered to 
   the mother.  Anesthesiologists testified before
   Congress that this false claim caused their preg-
   nant patients great anxiety. The truth is that 
   pregnant women safely undergo surgery all the time 
   without harm to their developing fetuses. Anesthesia 
   administered to the mother not only does not kill 
   the baby, it doesn't harm the baby either.

   Advocates next advanced the fiction that partial
   birth abortion, which they had renamed the 'intact 
   dilation and extraction,' was performed only on 
   severely disabled fetuses or in medical emergen-
   cies involving the mother.

   This march of mendacity was interrupted by one
   burst of candor in 1997. Ron Fitzsimmons, execu-
   tive director of the National Coalition of Abortion
   Providers, elected to come clean and admit that,
   contrary to the 'party line' assertions of most
   abortion advocates (himself included), partial-
   birth abortions were actually performed several
   thousand times a year (perhaps 6,000 to 7,000),
   mostly on healthy mothers with healthy babies.
   In 1999, in Kansas alone, 182 partial birth abor-
   tions were performed on babies declared'"viable,'
   and in each case the reason cited was the mental,
   not physical health of the mother. Other investi-
   gations revealed that the reasons women sought
   these second trimester abortions were quite
   similar to the reasons women chose abortion in
   the first trimester.

   In fact, partial birth abortions, which chemically
   dilate the cervix, can endanger the future fertility 
   of women who choose them. No medical authorities 
   have provided testimony that the procedure is ever 
   medically necessary for the sake of the mother. Why 
   then did Dr. Martin Haskell originate the procedure? 
   The answer appears to be that D and E abortions, the 
   other method for terminating an 18-26 week preg-
   nancy, is difficult for doctors to perform in their
   offices. A D and E involves dismembering the
   fetus in utero and then pulling it out piece by
   piece. By the time the fetus is 20 or so weeks
   old, he or she becomes difficult to cut. There-
   fore the 'intact' evacuation -- pulling the baby
   out by the feet, plunging scissors into the skull,
   vacuuming out the brain and pulling the col-
   lapsed skull through the vagina -- is preferred.
   Brenda Pratt Shafer, a nurse who was strongly
   pro-choice before witnessing a partial-birth
   abortion, described her horror at seeing the
   partially delivered baby squirming and opening
   and closing his fists before the doctor finished
   him off.

   Abortion advocates have strenuously fought
   this legislation as they have other mild pro-
   tections for the unborn like the 'Born Alive
   Infants Protection Act,' which specified only
   that if a child happened to survive an abor-
   tion, he or she would enjoy full rights as a
   human being. They do this because they are
   sure that each new abortion restriction is a
   staging ground for the final assault on Roe
   v. Wade.

   I wish that were true. I'd love to see Roe
   overturned and abortion limited as the
   states see fit. Sadly, this bill is valuable 
   as a symbol but little more. It symbolizes
   discomfort with the most brutal face of
   abortion. But the other forms of second
   trimester abortions are equally ghastly,
   and the law does not (the advocates' argu-
   ments to the contrary notwithstanding)
   touch them. There is no question that this
   represents a political victory for pro-life
   forces. Whether it was a substantive
   achievement is open to doubt.
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Papa Jack comments:
I believe the PAB is a substantial achievement
because the controversy has caused millions of 
Americans to pay attention and think about the
abortion debates who had ignored the topic 
before.  Many of those were upset by the 
brutality of the partial-birth abortion pro-
cedures.

Knowledge and truth are the BIG enemies of the 
abortion industry.  That's why they work so 
hard to insist everyone use such euphemisms as 
"CHOICE."

Happy holidays.