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This procedure is generally used beginning at 20 weeks (4 1/2 months) into pregnancy, and "routinely" to at least 24 weeks (5 1/2 months). It has often been used much later-- even into the ninth month. The Los Angeles Times accurately and succinctly described this abortion method in a June 16, 1995 news story:
The procedure requires a physician to extract a fetus, feet first, from the womb and through the birth canal until all but its head is exposed. Then the tips of surgical scissors are thrust into the base of the fetus' skull, and a suction catheter is inserted through the opening and the brain is removed.
In 1992, Dr. Martin Haskell of Dayton, Ohio, wrote a paper that described in detail, step-by-step, how to perform the procedure. ["Dilation and Extraction for Late Second Trimester Abortion."] Dr. Haskell is a family practitioner who has performed over 1,000 such procedures in his walk-in abortion clinics. Anyone who is seriously seeking the truth behind the conflicting claims regarding partial-birth abortions would do well to start by reading Dr. Haskell's paper, and the transcripts of the explanatory interviews that Dr. Haskell gave in 1993 to two medical publications, American Medical News (the official AMA newspaper) and Cincinnati Medicine.
It appears that the substantial majority of partial-birth abortions are performed late in the second trimester -- that is, before the 27-week mark -- but usually after 20 weeks (4 1/2 months). There is compelling evidence that the overwhelming majority of these pre-week-27 partial-birth abortions are performed for purely "social" reasons.
At least one partial-birth abortion specialist, the late Dr. James McMahon, regularly performed the procedure even after 26 weeks-- even into the ninth month. In 1995, Dr. McMahon submitted to the House Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee a graph and explanation that explicitly showed that he aborted healthy ("not flawed") babies even in the third trimester (after 26 weeks of pregnancy). Dr. McMahon's own graph showed, for example, that at 29 or 30 weeks, one-fourth of the aborted babies had no "flaw" however slight.
Both bills proposed in the state assembly have a life of the mother exception.
There is no evidence that the reasons for which late-term abortions are performed by the partial-birth abortion method are any different, in general, than the reasons for which late-term abortions are performed by other methods -- and it is well established that the great majority of late-term abortions do not involve any illness of the mother or the baby. They are purely "elective" procedures-- that is, they are performed for purely "social" reasons.
In 1987, the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), an affiliate of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), collected questionnaires from 1,900 women who were at abortion clinics procuring abortions. Of the 1,900, "420 had been pregnant for 16 or more weeks." These 420 women were asked to choose among a menu of reasons why they had not obtained the abortions earlier in their pregnancies. Only two percent (2%) said "a fetal problem was diagnosed late in pregnancy," compared to 71% who responded "did not recognize that she was pregnant or misjudged gestation," 48% who said "found it hard to make arrangements," and 33% who said "was afraid to tell her partner or parents." The report did not indicate that any of the 420 late abortions were performed because of maternal health problems. ["Why Do Women Have Abortions?," Family Planning Perspectives, July/August 1988.]
In his 1992 paper, Dr. Martin Haskell, who has performed over 1,000 partial-birth abortions.
In 1993, the American Medical News-- the official newspaper of the AMA-- conducted a tape-recorded interview with Dr. Haskell concerning this specific abortion method, in which he said:
And I'll be quite frank: most of my abortions are elective in that 20-24 week range. . . . In my particular case, probably 20% [of this procedure] are for genetic reasons. And the other 80% are purely elective.
In a lawsuit in 1995, Dr. Haskell testified that women come to him for partial-birth abortions with "a variety of conditions. Some medical, some not so medical." Among the "medical" examples he cited was "agoraphobia" (fear of open places). Moreover, in testimony presented to the Senate Judiciary Committee on November 17, 1995, ob/gyn Dr. Nancy Romer of Dayton (the city in which Dr. Haskell operates one of his abortion clinics) testified that three of her own patients had gone to Haskell's clinic for abortions "well beyond" 4 1/2 months into pregnancy, and that "none of these women had any medical illness, and all three had normal fetuses."
Brenda Pratt Shafer, a registered nurse who observed Dr. Haskell use the procedure to abort three babies in 1993, testified that one little boy had Down Syndrome, while the other two babies were completely normal and their mothers were healthy.
In June, 1995, Dr. McMahon submitted to Congress a detailed breakdown of a "series" of over 2,000 of these abortions that he had performed. He classified only 9% (175 cases) as involving "maternal [health] indications," of which the most common was "depression."
Dr. Pamela E. Smith, director of Medical Education, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Mt. Sinai Hospital, Chicago, gave the Senate Judiciary Committee her analysis of Dr. McMahon's 175 "maternal indication" cases. Of this sample, 39 cases (22%) were for maternal "depression," while another 16% were "for conditions consistent with the birth of a normal child (e.g., sickle cell trait, prolapsed uterus, small pelvis)," Dr. Smith noted. She added that in one-third of the cases, the conditions listed as "maternal indications" by Dr. McMahon really indicated that the procedure itself would be seriously risky to the mother.
In an interview published in the August 19 edition of American Medical News, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said, "I believe that Mr. Clinton was misled by his medical advisors on what is fact and what is fiction in reference to late-term abortions. Because in no way can I twist my mind to see that the late-term abortions as described-- you know, partial birth, and then destruction of the unborn child before the head is born-- is a medical necessity for the mother. It certainly can't be a necessity for the baby."
Dr. Koop, a world-renown pediatric surgeon, was asked by the American Medical News reporters whether he had ever "treated children with any of the disabilities cited in this debate? For example, have you operated on children born with organs outside of their bodies?" Dr. Koop replied, "Oh, yes indeed. I've done that many times. The prognosis usually is good. There are two common ways that children are born with organs outside of their body. One is an omphalocele, where the organs are out but still contained in the sac... the first child I ever did, with a huge omphalocele much bigger than her head, went on to develop well and become the head nurse in my intensive care unit many years later."
In addition, in the summer of 1996, an organization called Physicians' Ad Hoc Coalition for Truth (PHACT) began circulating material directly challenging President Clinton's claims. As of early September, PHACT reportedly consisted of over 230 physicians, mostly professors and other specialists in obstetrics, gynecology, and fetal medicine. In an advertisement published in August, the PHACT physicians said:
Congress, the public-- but most importantly women-- need to know that partial-birth abortion is never medically indicated to protect a mother's health or her future fertility.
The PHACT doctors also referred directly to the specific medical conditions that affected some of the women who appeared with President Clinton at his April 10 veto ceremony, such as hydrocephalus (excessive fluid in the head), and commented:
At a July 24 briefing on Capitol Hill, PHACT member Dr. Curtis Cook, an ob/gyn perinatologist with the West Michigan Perinatal and Genetic Diagnostic Center, said that partial-birth abortion:
is never necessary to preserve the life or the fertility of the mother, and may in fact threaten her health or well-being or future fertility. In my practice, I see these rare, unusual cases that come to most generalists' offices once in a lifetime-- they all come into our office. We see these every day....The presence of fetal disabilities or fetal anomalies are not a reason to have a termination of pregnancy to preserve the life of the mother-- they do not threaten the life of the mother in any way....[and] where these rare instances do occur, they do not require the death of the baby or the fetus prior to the completion of the delivery.
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