THE PROCEDURE
Thousands of partial-birth abortions are performed each year primarily in the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy on the healthy babies of healthy mothers. The child involved in a partial-birth abortion is not unborn. His or her life is taken during a breach delivery. The breach delivery, a procedure which obstetricians use in some circumstances to bring a healthy child into the world, is perverted when a partial-birth abortion is performed to result in a dead child. The physician, traditionally trained to do everything in his power to assist and protect both mother and child during the birth process, deliberately kills the child in the birth canal. While every abortion takes a human life, the partial-birth abortion method takes that life during the fifth month of pregnancy or later as the baby emerges from the mother's womb. H.R. 929 would end this cruel practice.
One abortionist described the partial-birth abortion procedure that he uses primarily in the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy:
The surgeon introduces a large grasping forceps * * * through the vaginal and cervical canals into the corpus of the uterus. * * * When the instrument appears on the sonogram screen, the surgeon is able to open and close its jaws to firmly and reliably grasp a lower extremity [leg]. The surgeon then applies firm traction to the instrument * * * and pulls the extremity into the vagina. * * *
With a lower extremity in the vagina, the surgeon uses his fingers to deliver the opposite lower extremity, then the torso, the shoulders and the upper extremities [arms].
The skull lodges at the internal cervical os.
At this point, the right-handed surgeon slides the fingers of the left had [sic] along the back of the fetus and `hooks' the shoulders of the fetus with the index and ring fingers (palm down).
While maintaining this tension, lifting the cervix and applying traction to the shoulders with the fingers of the left hand, the surgeon takes a pair of blunt curved Metzenbaum scissors in the right hand. He carefully advances the tip, curved down, along the spine and under his middle finger until he feels it contact the base of the skull under the tip of his middle finger.
[T]he surgeon then forces the scissors into the base of the skull or into the foramen magnum. Having safely entered the skull, he spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening.
The surgeon removes the scissors and introduces a suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull contents. With the catheter still in place, he applies traction to the fetus, removing it completely from the patient.1
[Footnote]
[Footnote] 1Martin Haskell, M.D., `Dilation and Extraction for Late Second Trimester Abortions,' Presented at the National Abortion Federation Risk Management Seminar (September 13, 1992), in Second Trimester Abortion: From Every Angle, 1992, [hereinafter Haskell] at 27, 30-31.
This method is particularly brutal and inhuman. Brenda Shafer, a registered nurse who witnessed a partial-birth abortion procedure while working for an Ohio abortionist, conveyed the abhorrent nature of the procedure in a letter to Congressman Tony Hall. Nurse Shafer wrote that witnessing the procedure was `the most horrible experience of my life.' She described watching one baby:
The baby's body was moving. His little fingers were clasping together. He was kicking his feet. All the while his little head was still stuck inside. Dr. Haskell took a pair of scissors and inserted them into the back of the baby's head. Then he opened the scissors up. Then he stuck the high-powered suction tube into the hole and sucked the baby's brains out.
Next, Dr. Haskell delivered the baby's head, cut the umbilical cord and delivered the placenta.2
[Footnote]
[Footnote] 2Letter from Brenda Shafer, R.N., to Congressman Tony Hall (July 9, 1995) (on file with the Subcomm. on the Constitution of the House Comm. on the Judiciary).
Clearly, the only difference between the partial-birth abortion procedure and homicide is a mere three inches.
The partial-birth abortion procedure is performed from around 20 weeks to full term.3
[Footnote] It is well documented that a baby is highly sensitive to pain stimuli during this period and even earlier.4
[Footnote] In fact, in a study conducted on fetuses between 20 to 34 weeks of gestation at the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in London, researchers concluded:
[Footnote] 3There are several abortion techniques employed between 20 weeks and full term. The techniques fall under the general categories of partial-birth abortion, dilation and evacuation, and amnioinfusion. In the dilation and evacuation procedures the baby is dismembered and removed from the uterus in pieces. See, D.A. Grimes and W. Cates, Jr., `Dilation and Evacuation,' Second Trimester Abortion--Perspectives After a Decade of Experience (G.S. Berger et al. eds., 1981). Amnioinfusion requires the injection of saline or other solutions into the amniotic cavity. The solution kills the baby, and labor is induced. See, Warren M. Hern, M.D., M.P.H., Abortion Practice (1984).
[Footnote] 4See, e.g., K.J.S. Anand and P.R. Hickey, `Pain and Its Effects in the Human Neonate and Fetus,' 317 The New England Journal of Medicine, 1321; V. Collins et al., `Fetal Pain and Abortion: The Medical Evidence,' Studies in Law and Medicine (1984); S. Reinis and J.M. Goldman, The Development of the Brain (1980).
Just as physicians now provide neonates with adequate analgesia, our findings suggest that those dealing with the fetus should consider making similar modifications to their practice. This applies not just to diagnostic and therapeutic procedures on the fetus, but possibly also to termination of pregnancy, especially by surgical techniques involving dismemberment.5
[Footnote]
[Footnote] 5Xenophon Giannakoulopoulos et al., `Fetal Plasma Cortisol and b-Endorphin Response to Intrauterine Needling,' The Lancet, July 9, 1994, at 77, 80.
In his testimony before the Constitution Subcommittee on June 15, 1995, Professor Robert White, Director of the Division of Neurosurgery and Brain Research Laboratory at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, stated, `The fetus within this time frame of gestation, 20 weeks and beyond, is fully capable of experiencing pain.'6
[Footnote] After specifically analyzing the partial-birth abortion procedure, Dr. White concluded, `Without question, all of this is a dreadfully painful experience for any infant subjected to such a surgical procedure.'7
[Footnote]
[Footnote] 6Hearing on Partial-Birth Abortion Before the Subcomm. on the Constitution of the House Comm. on the Judiciary, 104th Cong., 1st Sess., (1995) [hereinafter Hearing] (testimony of Robert J. White, M.D., Ph.D.).
[Footnote] 7Id.
