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Nevada LIFE Partial Birth Abortion Page
Court Must Allow States To Ban Partial Birth Abortion
Abortion Debate: Morally Defining Moment For Nation
Partial Birth Abortion Barbaric....And Real
Judge
Says Partial Birth Abortion Is Gruesome, Barbaric,
Uncivilized And Causes Severe Pain, August 26, 2004
Judge
Places Injunction On Partial Birth Abortion Ban. Ignores
Fetal Pain. June 2, 2004
Media
Advisory On Recycled Partial Birth Abortion Myths
April 18, 2004
Partial Birth Abortion Health Exception Is Clear, Real And
Unnecessary November 5, 2003
Bush
Signs Partial Birth Abortion Ban. Partial Birth Abortion
Myths Recycled. November 5, 2003
President To Sign Partial Birth Abortion Ban Wednesday
November 5, 2003 November 4, 2003
Partial Birth Abortion Ban Passes October 21, 2003
Partial Birth Abortion Passes, First Ban On Abortion Since
Roe June 5, 2003
Supreme Court Strikes Down Partial Birth Abortion Ban
June 29, 2000 Opinion-There's
No Defending Banned Procedure Don Nelson, President
Nevada LIFE Reno Gazette Journal
May 18, 2007
In the weeks since the
partial birth abortion decision, it's clear that
abortion proponents are sticking to their game plan:
don't say anything about the unborn child. The reason is
clear: partial birth abortions are so revolting that
even a clinical description causes us to shudder.
In a partial birth abortion,
the unborn child is pulled feet first from the womb
until only his head is left inside. The abortionist
punctures the skull with scissors, inserts a tube and
sucks the brains out.
Nurse Brenda Shafer's
testimony of the partial birth abortion she witnessed
was cited by the court. "The baby's little fingers were
clasping and unclasping, and his feet were kicking. Then
the doctor stuck the scissors through the back of his
head, and the baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a
startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that
he might fall. The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck
a high-powered suction tube into the opening and sucked
the baby's brains out."
How can anyone defend a
procedure where a doctor kills a child dangling from the
womb inches from birth?
That question led Congress to
act. Congress argued that "implicitly approving such a
brutal and inhumane procedure by choosing not to
prohibit it will further coarsen society to the humanity
of not only newborns, but all vulnerable and innocent
human life, making it increasingly difficult to protect
such life." And "partial-birth abortion " confuses the
medical, legal and ethical duties of physicians to
preserve and promote life, as the physician acts
directly against the physical life of a child, whom he
or she had just delivered, all but the head, out of the
womb, in order to end that life."
The court agreed that a
description of the procedure "demonstrates the
rationale" for the ban and that Congress can use its
powers "to promote respect for life, including life of
the unborn." Substantial majorities, pro-life and
pro-choice, agree.
Abortion advocates usually
respond that partial birth abortions happen as a result
of "wanted pregnancies" going horribly wrong. But
partial birth abortionists say that almost all partial
birth abortions are performed for women whose unborn
child poses no risk to her physical well-being.
Justice Ginsburg's dissent
argued, among other things, that women's "ability to
realize their full potential, the Court recognized, is
intimately connected to 'their ability to control their
reproductive lives.' ... Thus, legal challenges ...
center on a woman's autonomy to determine her life's
course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature."
The "Casey Court described the centrality of 'the
decision whether to bear ... a child,' to a woman's
'dignity and autonomy,' her 'personhood' and 'destiny,'
her 'conception of ... her place in society.'"
Here Ginsburg makes the
leading abortion feminist argument that partial birth
abortion and abortion are necessary to fulfill a woman's
potential and to achieve or protect her equal standing
in society. That has to be news to most women.
Ginsburg's argument is dangerous because it says that
equality is not a property inherent to women. It also
says that children are obstacles and expendable in the
pursuit of these ends.
The gruesomeness of partial
birth abortion and the arguments for it are the reasons
large majorities of Americans oppose it. It's about time
the court got something right on abortion.
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