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The GOP-led
Congress is poised to restrict partial-birth abortion. But another
horrifying abortion procedure accounts for the deaths of thousands
of other viable babies.
By Lynn Vincent
Doctor and incoming Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist calls
partial-birth abortion "a rogue procedure" that "offends
the sensibilities of me as a physician." Thankfully, most
Washington watchers expect quick action to outlaw the grisly
"dilation and extraction" (D&X) abortion technique now
that Congress and the White House are both in Republican hands.
> What most Americans do not realize, however, is that D&X is only
one type of abortion that
kills viable babies. Even if Congress and the president outlaw
partial-birth abortion, another type of late-term abortion could still
be used, the violent "dilation and evacuation"
(D&E) method, in which preborn infants are removed piece by
piece.
> Martin Haskell of Dayton, Ohio, in 1992 introduced the dilation
and extraction procedure, the one pro-lifers would later label
"partial-birth abortion", at a Risk Management Seminar
sponsored by the National Abortion Federation. The two to three-day
method calls for the abortionist to force early dilation and labor,
deliver through the cervix the head of a living child, stab the child near
the base of its skull, scramble its brains, then fully deliver the
baby, dead. Dilation and evacuation is quicker, but no less heinous.
In a D&E, which a partial-birth ban (in a manner of speaking)
would leave intact, the doctor rips the parts of a living child out
of its mother's womb one fully formed body part at a time.
> An analysis of the most recent CDC statistics shows that even
while the number of abortions overall fell by about 20 percent
during the 1990s, the number of late second-trimester and
third-trimester abortions increased by 23 percent in the 35 states
(plus New York City) that reported abortion statistics to the CDC
throughout the 1990s. (Some states, like Ohio, didn't report every
year; California, a high-abortion state, didn't report at all to the
CDC.)
> Abortions between 21 and 25 weeks are considered late
second-trimester, while those at 26 weeks and older are considered
third-trimester. All babies at or beyond 21 weeks gestation are
entering the realm of viability, with their chances of survival
outside the womb increasing between 10 and 20 percent with each
passing week. By 27 weeks, viability is "presumed," according
to the American Medical Association. Abortionists during the 1990s
killed at least 94,680 babies at or beyond 21 weeks of age,
according to the CDC. In 1990, doctors in 35 states and New York
City aborted 6,574 babies at 21 weeks gestation or later. In
1999, the figure was 8,063.
> The pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute estimates that
abortionists performed 2,200 D&X procedures in 2000; Others put
the figure at between 4,000 and 5,000. That means D&X abortions
kill between one-quarter and one-half of all viable and near-viable
aborted babies. D&E abortions kill the rest.
> According to an August 1998 issue of the Journal of the American
Medical Association (JAMA), some physicians prefer D&E over
labor-induction methods for second-trimester abortions:
"D&E has a lower mortality rate, takes less time, is less
expensive, can be done on an outpatient basis, and takes less of a
psychological toll on some women because it does not imitate labor."
But other physicians, according to JAMA, prefer to induce labor
because they find the labor-induction method "less
distasteful."
> That's no surprise. In an article published by Priests for Life,
former abortionist Tony Levatino describes the D&E procedure:
"A second trimester D&E abortion is a blind procedure. The
baby can be in any orientation or position inside the uterus.
Picture yourself reaching in with ... [a] clamp and grasping
anything you can.... Once you have grasped something inside, squeeze
on the clamp to set the jaws and pull hard-really hard. You feel
something let go, and out pops a fully formed leg about 4 to 5 inches
long. Reach in again and grasp whatever you can ... pull really hard
once again, and out pops an arm about the same length. Reach in
again and again with that clamp and tear out the spine, intestines,
heart and lungs."
> Dr. Levatino writes that the toughest part of a D&E abortion is
extracting the baby's plum-sized head which, at the end of the
procedure, is no longer attached to its body, and therefore floats
free inside the mother's womb. "You will know you have it ...
when you crush down on the clamp and see a pure white gelatinous
material issue from the cervix," Dr. Levatino writes.
> "That was the baby's brains. You can then extract the skull
pieces. If you have a really bad day like I often did, a little face
may come out and stare back at you."
> Not only are late second- and third-trimester abortions grisly to
read about, they endanger the lives and health of women. Hal Wallis is a
Texas gynecologist and former obstetrician who heads the Physicians
Consortium, a conservative coalition of state-based physicians
groups. He said late second- and third-trimester abortions carry with them
an increased risk of
infection, bleeding abnormality and blood loss, and post-delivery
retention of the placenta requiring later surgical removal.
> "To put it in perspective, if I had someone 22 or 23 weeks along
who was miscarrying, she would be admitted to the labor-and-delivery
unit, and given care equivalent to labor-and-delivery care because
of the danger of it all," Dr. Wallis said. "But
abortionists routinely perform these procedures on an outpatient
basis."
> In the first six years of the last decade, the number of late-term
abortions climbed by almost a third; the numbers declined slightly
the rest of the years, but 1999's total number of late-term
abortions was still more than 20 percent higher than 1990's.
Moreover, late abortion as a percentage of all abortion represents a
growth industry: In 1990, late abortions accounted for 1 percent of
the total abortions reported to the CDC; by 1999, that share grew 50
percent.
> The group formerly known as the National Abortion Rights Action
League did not return our call for comment on the increasing trend
toward late-term abortion. Neither did the National Abortion
Federation, a coalition of abortionists, nor the American College of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the first professional medical
association to officially oppose legal restrictions on partial-birth
abortion.
> That may be because abortions late in the second trimester and in the
third trimester are risky for women. According to the August 1998
JAMA article, when abortion occurred at 21 weeks or more, 16.7 per
100,000 women died. That's two-and-a-half times the risk of maternal
death from childbirth, which is 6.7 per 100,000 deliveries. The JAMA
article called the difference "not statistically
significant," although the 10 additional families who lose
mothers, daughters, and sisters to late abortion probably believe
otherwise.
> Meanwhile, late-term abortions during the 1990s earned abortionists
between $150 million and $200 million.
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