<font color=brown>More lies and deceptions from the right..........<font color=black>
********************************************************
"Partial Birth Abortion" Is Not Late-Term Abortion
Information compiled by Polly Rothstein, President, Westchester Coalition for Legal Abortion, Inc., May 7, 1999
This document was written to clarify the "partial birth abortion" legislation and expose the deception of proponents.
Most legislators, candidates, and reporters are misinformed about the ban on "partial birth abortions." When asked whether they’ve read the bill or have seen only the cartoon about the bill, most admit they haven’t read the bill but have seen and accepted as valid the cartoons and proponents’ descriptions.
When they read the bill, they’re stunned: "Is this the whole thing?" "It doesn't mention any stage of pregnancy. Where is the section about nearly born babies?" "This isn’t what the [Catholic bishops, Right to Life, Conservative Party, Christian Coalition] says." "Where's the part about the scissors and sucking the brains out?" "I'm surprised. I didn’t know this."
The cartoon depicts a fully developed fetus in a specific procedure. In fact, the bill would apply to almost every abortion throughout pregnancy. This bill is NOT about late-term abortions. "Late-term abortions" is false and should not be used by the media or pro-choice people.
Proponents admit that a "partial birth abortion" ban can not be law under Roe v. Wade or the current Supreme Court. They don’t care about it except as a clever tactic to overturn Roe v. Wade, turn voters against pro-choice legislators, increase anti-abortion sentiment, and raise money (in NYS for the Conservative Party).
This bill has been struck down in all but one state (Virginia). In a typical court decision, a federal judge in Louisiana granted a permanent injunction on the state’s law on March 4, ruling that the law was unconstitutional because it bans virtually all safe abortion procedures, places an undue burden on a woman's right to choose abortion, lacks an adequate health exception and is vague. The court also criticized the state's defense of the law, describing it as "truly a conceptual theory that …has no relationship to fact, law or medicine.
When the National Conference of Catholic Bishops ran ads claiming that women had late-term abortions for such frivolous reasons as not fitting into a prom gown, abortion rights advocates fell into the trap of arguing about the number of late-term abortions. They didn’t explain that the media lumped together perfectly legal second trimester abortions and abortions on viable fetuses. They defended late-term abortions by putting the spotlight on women who terminated advanced pregnancies because they were ill or had severely damaged fetuses. They failed to stay on message that this bill would ban almost all abortion procedures throughout pregnancy, so the message was lost to the public.
Following is the full text of New York State’s "Partial Birth Abortion" ban.
S T A T E O F N E W Y O R K
wcla.org |
