"Partial-birth Abortion" Defined By Law
The phrase "partial-birth abortion" was first coined by Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee. The phrase has been used in numerous state and federal bills and laws, although the legal definition of the term is not always the same. The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act defines "partial-birth abortion" as follows:
| “ | An abortion in which the person performing the abortion, deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus; and performs the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the partially delivered living fetus. (18 U.S. Code 1531) | ” |
In the 2000 Supreme Court case of Stenberg v. Carhart, a Nebraska law banning "partial-birth abortion" was ruled unconstitutional, in part because the language defining "partial-birth abortion" was deemed vague. In 2006, the Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Carhart found that the 2003 act "departs in material ways" from the Nebraska law and that it pertains only to a specific abortion procedure, intact dilation and extraction. Some commentators have noted that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act's language was carefully crafted to take into account previous rulings. Although in most cases the procedure legally defined as "partial birth abortion" would be medically defined as "intact dilation and extraction", these overlapping terms do not always coincide. For example, the IDX procedure may be used to remove a deceased fetus (e.g. due to a miscarriage or feticide) that is developed enough to require dilation of the cervix for its extraction. Removing a dead fetus does not meet the federal legal definition of "partial-birth abortion," which specifies that partial live delivery must precede "the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the partially delivered living fetus." Additionally, a doctor may extract a fetus past the navel and then "disarticulate at the neck", which could fall within the terms of the statute even though it would not result in an intact body and therefore would not be an intact dilation and extraction.
Read more about this topic: Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act
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