Posted on 03/05/2003 11:07:47 PM PST by LdSentinal
Vicky Saporta was only two weeks into her job as president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation in 1995 when she first heard the phrase: partial birth abortion.
It's a phrase that sent her emotions reeling into overdrive then, and one that eight years later continues to rile her as she prepares to fight what looks like a losing battle to stop Congress from passing the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.
Republican lawmakers expect President Bush to sign the bill into law before the Easter recess. In his January State of the Union speech, Bush named the bill as one of his top priorities.
But before that occurs, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution plans to hold a hearing on the issue. The bill, first introduced in 1995, passed both the House and Senate, but was vetoed twice by then President Clinton.
"There is no such thing as partial birth abortion," Saporta declared last week while dismissing the bill as "unconstitutional."
She pointed to what she sees as the dangers of the bill: It bans multiple abortion procedures and makes pregnant women with health risks vulnerable to hysterectomies instead of the partial birth abortion method and provides no exception for the life of the mother.
She also characterized the name of the bill as "rhetoric" and dismissed the anti-abortion notion that "women are having [late-term] abortions because they can't fit into their prom dresses."
The proposed Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act was described in graphic terms by the billâ's sponsor, Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio).
"A physician delivers an unborn child's body until only the head remains inside the womb, punctures the back of the child's skull with a sharp instrument, and sucks the child's brains out before completing delivery of the dead infant," Chabot said.
The Senate version of the bill, sponsored by Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), is expected to reach the floor next week.
Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Jim Greenwood (R-Pa.) hope to introduce their alternative bill, the Late Term Abortion Restriction Act. It allows the procedure banned by the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, but prohibits abortion after viability of the fetus unless the mother's health is at risk.
But they know it's unlikely to be brought up since their bill has been repeatedly rejected by the Rules Committee.
"Our party would be more popular if it didn't take such an extreme position," said Greenwood. "But that's the great debate in our party. Some believe we get most of our strength from the right wing of the party."
He added, "I have always thought it was unfortunate that the party I believe should stand for individual freedom makes a very sharp departure from that philosophy when it comes to interfering with women's rights.â€
Greenwood conceded, "This puts me in an awkward position. I don't expect to be elected Speaker of the House."
Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) has a visceral reaction to the phrase "partial birth abortion."
"To stab a child in the back of the head and then suck his or her brains out is child abuse in the extreme,"said Smith, who has been pushing for this bill's passage since 1995. "The other [abortion] methods are no less gruesome. They are somewhat less visible."
He added, "The other side wants America to be in denial. The more they can proffer denial about the reality of abortion, the better. They cloak everything in the sophistry of choice."
But pro-abortion rights groups disagree and always refer to the bill as "so-called" partial birth abortion.
Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), said last week that the name of the bill is "inflammatory." But she realizes that she has little power to stop passage of this bill. "We are climbing uphill," she said.
LeRoy Carhart, a Nebraska physician who has performed numerous abortions, including the procedure that falls under the GOP description of a partial birth abortion, says a more fitting title for the bill would be the "partial truth abortion ban act."
He also said if the federal ban is passed, he plans to file a law suit similar to the one filed under his name in 2000, Carhart v. Stenberg, in which a Nebraska law similar to the one before Congress was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Carhart, who teaches abortion methods at clinics nationwide, took a potshot at Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who supports the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act: "I hope he knows more about heart surgery than he does about abortions because he certainly doesn't know much."
He added, "This whole issue is about control over women. They have picked one very gross thing about abortion and tried to sell it to the American people as wrong."
Nonetheless, Smith says the bill's name accurately describes the procedure, normally called "dilation and extraction" or "dilation and evacuation" by physicians who perform it.
"A child is born partially," said Smith. "Why not call it what it is?"
Like Chabot, Smith believes the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act will be signed into law, but he doesn't want to sound too confident.
"I don't ever like to use the phrase shoo-in," he said. "Nothing is ever a shoo-in."
Greenwood conceded, "This puts me in an awkward position. I don't expect to be elected Speaker of the House."
And nor should you.
For those who'd like to see some of Leroy's recent work, just visit this page. 2MB Windows Media movie of the girl being loaded into the ambulance and smaller video of same.
To grasp how incompetent abortionist hackjobs are, consider that Leroy Carhart, in June of 1993, signed an agreement with the Nebraska Attorney General's office, agreeing that it's bad form to:
He really is a hero to the Cult of Child-Hating Barbarians.
Then why all the fuss about banning something that doesn't exist?
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