Missed Opportunity in Senate Abortion Debate

The US Senate has just passed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The bill as passed bans an abortion procedure in which the so-called doctor partially delivers the child, then punctures his skull and uses a tool to suck out the child's brain. There is an exception to cover the situation where the procedure is necessary to preserve the life of the mother, but no exception to preserve the mother's health.

During the debate on the bill, Senator Durbin proposed an amendment that would have banned all types of abortion on "viable" infants. The amendment added an exception to allow any abortion procedure, including partial birth abortion, to preserve the mother from "grievous" physical injury. The Senate rejected Durbin's amendment in a 60-38 vote, going on to pass the bill by 64-33.

I have examined the bill, Sen. Durbin's amendment, and the debate on the amendment. It seems to me that the anti-abortion senators missed an opportunity to gain important ground by not taking the amendment more seriously. The pro-abortion senators were willing, apparently for the first time, to consider banning all types of medically unnecessary late term abortions; not just partial birth abortions. There were important objections to some of the wording of the amendment, but the anti-abortion senators made no attempt to explore alternate wording to answer the objections.

One problem with the wording of the amendment was that there is no standard to determine the meaning of "viable." When no definition is provided, any interpretation might be acceptable in the courts. It seems that it would have been easy to add a definition to the amendment, answering that objection.

A related problem was that many partial birth abortions are performed during the second trimester of pregnancy, when there is an increased likelihood that the child would not be considered viable. Since the goal of the bill is to outlaw partial birth abortions, using viability as a standard would defeat the purpose of the bill.

I think that those of us who oppose abortion should consider outlawing a larger number of abortions (all medically unnecessary late-term abortions) to be a bigger step in the right direction than forbidding a particular method. As medical science advances, the stage of pregnancy at which a child is viable will gradually be pushed earlier and earlier. The prohibition against abortion of viable infants would be pushed back along with the stage of viability. This is a trend that I think any abortion opponent should see as positive.

Even the partial birth abortion procedure itself is more barbaric than alternative methods only in the eyes of the beholder, since it occurs within view of the mother and anyone else who might be present. It surely is barbaric, and abominable murder, but not more so than any other abortion procedure. In fact, I consider it less inhumane than the alternatives: attacking the child in the womb with tools or chemicals, to dismember or chemically burn him to death. If I were faced with those choices for myself, I'd prefer to have my brain sucked out of my head.

The final objection to Sen. Durbin's wording is that, while the potential harm to the mother that he seeks to avoid is strongly worded ("grievous" physical harm), the degree of risk of that harm is not specified. If someone could say that there is any risk at all of such harm, the prohibition would be nullified. That's an important point, but how hard would it have been to discuss adding some wording about the permissible degree of risk? As far as I can tell, no one tried to resolve this issue either.

The main benefit of banning partial birth abortion will be to salve the conscience of the nation. Murder of unborn children will continue, from the moment of conception almost to the moment of potential birth. I for one am not satisfied that the crime will be required to be committed out of sight. The anti-abortion forces in the Senate missed an opportunity to seek a compromise with much greater benefit than the bill they finally passed.