Posted on: Sunday, March 16, 2003

EDITORIAL
Late-term abortions a matter for physicians

For the first time in U.S. history, Congress is poised to criminalize a specific abortion procedure. Such a move could signal the beginning of the end of reproductive choice.

The clinical term for the controversial procedure in question is "intact dilation and extraction."

Critics call it "partial-birth abortion," and its ban has been on the Bush administration agenda for quite some time.

"Partial-birth abortion is an abhorrent procedure that offends human dignity," President Bush said last week in response to the Senate's overwhelming approval of the legislation to ban a procedure probably best described as late-term abortion.

Sure, late-term abortion is a highly undesirable procedure, involving dismembering a fetus before removing it. Most women would gladly avoid it, but they don't always have that choice.

The bill would allow this procedure only to save a woman's life but not to protect her health.

How do you draw that line?

The 40,000-member American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said bans on the procedure are "inappropriate, ill-advised and dangerous."

We agree that the determination of whether to use this procedure should be made by a physician, not Congress.

Women who resort to late-term abortions may be victims of rape or incest or may have learned too late that the fetus was severely deformed.

Some doctors use this late-term abortion in cases where it's safer for the woman than inducing labor, and to preserve her ability to deliver a healthy baby in a future pregnancy.

In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case Stenberg vs. Carhart that a Nebraska ban on abortion by intact dilation and extraction was unconstitutional because it provided no exception for the "health of the woman" and thus placed an "undue burden" on a pregnant woman's constitutional right to choose.

What makes Congress think it's qualified to overrule the medical community and the nation's highest court on this highly specialized and personal health issue?