Harper’s ran an excellent article on “Partial Birth” Abortion a couple of months ago.

The term “partial-birth abortion” was invented for purposes of writing legislation. There is no textbook reference to any operative procedure or medical state called “partial birth.” There are a few published medical references to “dilation and extraction,” or “intact dilation and evacuation,” both of which are terms certain physicians have given to the forceps-aided extraction of an aborted fetus all in one piece. One technique for intact removal was described in detail in 1992, when an Ohio physician got up at a National Abortion Federation meeting, presented a paper entitled “Dilation and Extraction for Late Second Trimester Abortion,” and inadvertently triggered the cross-country chain of events that escalated into what Kate Michelman, the recently retired president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, now says was the most difficult abortion issue she was ever called upon to confront. “Silver platter” is another way this sentiment is sometimes expressed, among abortion doctors and abortion-rights advocates, or “gift-wrapped.” By this they mean the swiftness, the devastating ease, with which they found themselves ceding their opponents control over the public imagination the month the first Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was introduced in Congress, nearly a decade ago.

Link

Related Leave a Comment