The Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003 was passed by the 108th Congress
during its first session

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/abortion/2003s3.html and signed into law
by President Bush in Nov. 2003

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031105-1.html 

If anyone has more current info, please let me know!

Peggy Willocks

 

This is lengthy but worth reading:

§1531. Partial-birth abortions prohibited 

(Background information)

  In  <http://laws.findlaw.com/us/530/914.html> Stenberg v. Carhart (530
U.S. 914, 932 (2000)), the United States Supreme Court opined "that
significant medical authority supports the proposition that in some
circumstances, [partial birth abortion] would be the safest procedure" for
pregnant women who wish to undergo an abortion. Thus, the Court struck down
the State of Nebraska's ban on partial-birth abortion procedures, concluding
that it placed an "undue burden" on women seeking abortions because it
failed to include an exception for partial-birth abortions deemed necessary
to preserve the "health" of the mother.

       (4)  In reaching this conclusion, the Court deferred to the Federal
district court's factual findings that the partial-birth abortion procedure
was statistically and medically as safe as, and in many circumstances safer
than, alternative abortion procedures.

       (5)  However, the great weight of evidence presented at the Stenberg
trial and other trials challenging partial-birth abortion bans, as well as
at extensive Congressional hearings, demonstrates that a partial-birth
abortionis never necessary to preserve 20 the health of a woman, poses
significant health risks to a woman upon whom the procedure is performed,
and is outside of the standard of medical care.

       (6)    Despite the dearth of evidence in the Stenberg trial court
record supporting the district court's findings, the United States Court of
Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and the Supreme Court refused to set aside
the district court's factual findings because, under the applicable standard
of appellate review, they were not "clearly erroneous". A finding of fact is
clearly erroneous "when although there is evidence to support it, the
reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm
conviction that a mistake has been committed".
<http://laws.findlaw.com/us/470/564.html> Anderson v. City of Bessemer City,
North Carolina (470 U.S. 564, 573 (1985)). Under this standard, "if the
district court's account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record
viewed in its entirety, the court of appeals may not reverse it even though
convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have
weighed the evidence differently" (Id. at 574). 

       (7)    Thus, in Stenberg, the United States Supreme Court was
required to accept the very questionable findings issued by the district
court judge Ñ the effect of which was to render null and void the reasoned
factual findings and policy determinations of the United States Congress and
at least 27 State legislatures. 

(8)        However, under well-settled Supreme Court jurisprudence, the
United States Congress is not bound to accept the same factual findings that
the Supreme Court was bound to accept in Stenberg under the "clearly
erroneous" standard. Rather, the United States Congress is entitled to reach
its own factual findingsÑfindings that the Supreme Court accords great
deferenceÑand to enact legislation based upon these findings so long as it
seeks to pursue a legitimate interest that is within the scope of the
Constitution, and draws reasonable inferences based upon substantial
evidence

*    *    *    *  This was the conclusion:

Pursuant to the testimony received during extensive legislative hearings
during the 104th, 105th, and 107th Congresses, Congress finds and declares
that: 

              (A)   Partial-birth abortion poses serious risks to the health
of a woman undergoing the procedure. Those risks include, among other
things: an increase in a woman's risk of suffering from cervical
incompetence, a result of cervical dilation making it difficult or
impossible for a woman to successfully carry a subsequent pregnancy to term;
an increased risk of uterine rupture, abruption, amniotic fluid embolus, and
trauma to the uterus as a result of converting the child to a footling
breech position, a procedure which, according to a leading obstetrics
textbook, "there are very few, if any, indications for . . . other than for
delivery of a second twin"; and a risk of lacerations and secondary
hemorrhaging due to the doctor blindly forcing a sharp instrument into the
base of the unborn child's skull while he or she is lodged in the birth
canal, an act which could result in severe bleeding, brings with it the
threat of shock, and could ultimately result in maternal death. 

              (B)   There is no credible medical evidence that partial-birth
abortions are safe or are safer than other abortion procedures. No
controlled studies of partial-birth abortions have been conducted nor have
any comparative studies been conducted to demonstrate its safety and
efficacy compared to other abortion methods. Furthermore, there have been no
articles published in peer-reviewed journals that establish that
partial-birth abortions are superior in any way to established abortion
procedures. Indeed, unlike other more commonly used abortion procedures,
there are currently no medical schools that provide instruction on abortions
that include the instruction in partial-birth abortions in their curriculum.


              (C)   A prominent medical association has concluded that
partial-birth abortion is "not an accepted medical practice," that it has
"never been subject to even a minimal amount of the normal medical practice
development," that "the relative advantages and disadvantages of the
procedure in specific circumstances remain unknown," and that "there is no
consensus among obstetricians about its use". The association has further
noted that partial-birth abortion is broadly disfavored by both medical
experts and the public, is "ethically wrong," and "is never the only
appropriate procedure". 

              (D)   Neither the plaintiff in Stenberg v. Carhart, nor the
experts who testified on his behalf, have identified a single circumstance
during which a partial-birth abortion was necessary to preserve the health
of a woman. 

              (E)   The physician credited with developing the partial-birth
abortion procedure has testified that he has never encountered a situation
where a partial-birth abortion was medically necessary to achieve the
desired outcome and, thus, is never medically necessary to preserve the
health of a woman. 

              (F)   A ban on the partial-birth abortion procedure will
therefore advance the health interests of pregnant women seeking to
terminate a pregnancy.

              (G)   In light of this overwhelming evidence, Congress and the
States have a compelling interest in prohibiting partial-birth abortions. In
addition to promoting maternal health, such a prohibition will draw a bright
line that clearly distinguishes abortion and infanticide, that preserves the
integrity of the medical profession, and promotes respect for human life. 

              (H)   Based upon  <http://laws.findlaw.com/us/410/113.html>
Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113 (1973)) and
<http://laws.findlaw.com/us/505/833.html> Planned Parenthood v. Casey (505
U.S. 833 (1992)), a governmental interest in protecting the life of a child
during the delivery process arises by virtue of the fact that during a
partial-birth abortion, labor is induced and the birth process has begun.
This distinction was recognized in Roe when the Court noted, without
comment, that the Texas parturition statute, which prohibited one from
killing a child "in a state of being born and before actual birth," was not
under attack. This interest becomes compelling as the child emerges from the
maternal body. A child that is completely born is a full, legal person
entitled to constitutional protections afforded a "person" under the United
States Constitution. Partial-birth abortions involve the killing of a child
that is in the process, in fact mere inches away from, becoming a "person".
Thus, the government has a heightened interest in protecting the life of the
partially-born child. 

              (I)   This, too, has not gone unnoticed in the medical
community, where a prominent medical association has recognized that
partial-birth abortions are "ethically different from other destructive
abortion techniques because the fetus, normally twenty weeks or longer in
gestation, is killed outside of the womb". According to this medical
association, the " 'partial birth' gives the fetus an autonomy which
separates it from the right of the woman to choose treatments for her own
body". 

              (J)   Partial-birth abortion also confuses the medical, legal,
and ethical duties of physicians to preserve and promote life, as the
physician acts directly against the physical life of a child, whom he or she
had just delivered, all but the head, out of the womb, in order to end that
life. Partial-birth abortion thus appropriates the terminology and
techniques used by obstetricians in the delivery of living children --
obstetricians who preserve and protect the life of the mother and the child
-Ñ and instead uses those techniques to end the life of the partially-born
child. 

              (K)   Thus, by aborting a child in the manner that
purposefully seeks to kill the child after he or she has begun the process
of birth, partial-birth abortion undermines the public's perception of the
appropriate role of a physician during the delivery process, and perverts a
process during which life is brought into the world, in order to destroy a
partially-born child. 

              (L)   The gruesome and inhumane nature of the partial-birth
abortion procedure and its disturbing similarity to the killing of a newborn
infant promotes a complete disregard for infant human life that can only be
countered by a prohibition of the procedure. 

              (M)   The vast majority of babies killed during partial-birth
abortions are alive until the end of the procedure. It is a medical fact,
however, that unborn infants at this stage can feel pain when subjected to
painful stimuli and that their perception of this pain is even more intense
than that of newborn infants and older children when subjected to the same
stimuli. Thus, during a partial-birth abortion procedure, the child will
fully experience the pain associated with piercing his or her skull and
sucking out his or her brain. 

              (N)   Implicitly approving such a brutal and inhumane
procedure by choosing not to prohibit it will further coarsen society to the
humanity of not only newborns, but all vulnerable and innocent human life,
making it increasingly difficult to protect such life. Thus, Congress has a
compelling interest in acting -- indeed it must act -- to prohibit this
inhumane procedure.

              (O)   For these reasons, Congress finds that partial-birth
abortion is never medically indicated to preserve the health of the mother;
is in fact unrecognized as a valid abortion procedure by the mainstream
medical community; poses additional health risks to the mother; blurs the
line between abortion and infanticide in the killing of a partially-born
child just inches from birth; and confuses the role of the physician in
childbirth and should, therefore, be banned. 

 


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