Responses by Mary Mostert, Editor, Michael Reagan MONTHLY MONITOR
May 8, 1997
In February, Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Action League (NARAL) issued the following statement about Partial Birth Abortion. She claims that NARAL is concerned about women's "reproductive" health. By that term she does not mean protecting the ability of women to reproduce, which is what the words say. By it she means unfettered abortion on demand.
Thank you for being here. I’m Kate Michelman, President of NARAL. I am joined by Gloria Feldt, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America; Vicki Saporta, Executive Director of the National Abortion Federation; and Kathryn Kolbert, Vice President of the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy. We are holding this press conference today to again set the record straight on late-term abortion.
Comments made in a New York Times article today contributed to the distortions, which have led to confusion about the facts surrounding abortions late in pregnancy.
The "confusion" Michelman mentions was created when she and other members of the abortion lobby simply lied about the number, and the reasons for women having partial birth abortions.
The central core of NARAL’s mission and the pro-choice community has always been to protect women’s reproductive health. The right to choose is a fundamental decision that must be made by women and their families in consultation with their doctor. Note that no father or husband is even MENTIONED as perhaps having an interest, or even some sort of "right" to be involved in the life and death decision of his child. Note how she defines "reproductive health." Reproduction has nothing to do with her definition of reproductive health. Her definition of "reproductive health" means abortion, pure and simple.
Since the landmark Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade, and as recently as 1992 in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court has consistently upheld the compromise established in Roe. That compromise balanced a woman’s right to decide whether or not to have an abortion and the state’s interest in protecting potential life.
The Suprreme Court recognized some kind of right to life of unborn infants when they reached a "viable" stage - in the third trimester of pregnancy. This "viable" stage has extended to the late second trimester due to advances in medicine
Roe allows a woman to choose to terminate a pregnancy before viability. Roe also established that this right is limited after viability at which point states may ban abortion as long as an exception is provided for the woman’s life or health. Forty-one states, including the District of Columbia, have passed such laws banning abortion after viability except to preserve a woman’s life and health.
NARAL, in its literature has defined elevated blood pressure, depression, toxemia and other common discomforts of pregnancy as reason for a late term partial birth abortion. As I read through their lists of reasons for justifying a partial birth abortion, I realized that all six of my children would have qualified for execution under her definitions of "preserving a woman's life and health." My blood pressure went up in every pregnancy and labor was induced for three of them during the last month of pregnancy. Most pregnancies, in fact, could, under NARAL's definition of "health" be terminated in their ninth month - well beyond the "viable" stage of pregnancy.
The debate over legislation to outlaw the so-called "partial birth" abortion procedure has been confused by the failure to make the distinction, outlined in Roe, between abortions performed before viability and those performed after viability.
In China, where the law prohibits more than one child per family in the cities, partial birth abortion does not exist. It is, after all, an extremely dangerous procedure, as any woman who has ever given birth should instantly realize. The infant is turned by the abortionist so he or she can be delibered feet first. Three days of manual dilating the cervix has taken place. The infant is delivered to its shoulders, then executed by sticking sharp surgical scissors in the base of the skull and sucking out its brains. At the end of the procedure, of course the infant is no longer "viable." In China, the baby would simply be delivered and THEN killed - since they have no need to play stupid word games about what they are doing. In America, the moment the baby takes a breath, it has constitutional rights which must be defended by the state.These are the facts that we have maintained throughout this debate:
•99 percent of all abortions are performed before 20 weeks.
We have no way of knowing if this is true. States do not keep statistics on abortions. These statistics are guesses based on numbers from abortion providers.
•4/100ths of the one percent performed after 20 weeks are performed in the third trimester, which roughly corresponds to the 7th, 8th and 9th month of pregnancy.
We have no way of knowing if this is true either. We do know that thousands more of these abortions are performed than the public was originally told. But, what difference does the number make? Statistically there are very few ritual killings. Does that mean we should not object to them taking place?
•The procedure targeted by the so-called "partial birth" ban -- more correctly Intact D & E -- is generally performed after 20 weeks. This means that the procedure is used both before and after viability.
There is NO medical justification for this barbaric, non-medical procedure. It's only reason for existence is to EXPAND Roe v Wade. NARAL wants to make abortion on demand a "right" throughout pregnancy, which Roe v Wade did not do.
•Viability is a determination that can only be made by a physician and usually occurs between 23 - 24 weeks and 28 weeks.
Actually "viability" really can only be made by allowing the child to be born. Doctor can, and very often DO, miscalculate. My grandchildren have classmates who, their mothers were told, would not survive birth and if they did, they would be abnormal. They survived birth and are perfectly normal
•As a result of the balancing act under Roe and Casey, states have outlawed abortions after viability except in cases of life and health. There is no known evidence that these laws have been broken. Before viability, Roe and Casey held that the choice of whether to terminate a pregnancy must be left to the woman and her doctor.
When Roe v Wade was decided in 1972, no one dreamed that one day there would be ultrasound monitoring well before birth which could tell all about the unborn, it sex, its general health, etc. Abortion, expecially partial birth abortion has become a tool of Eugenic control which Adolph Hitler would have loved. He would have eliminated all defective and handicapped or politically incorrect infants prior to birth by government edict. Is that coming in America?
•Although we do have information on when abortions are preformed, there is no data on the number of Intact D & E procedures performed. Neither the Centers for Disease Control nor the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which is recognized by the CDC as having the most comprehensive statistics on abortions, has data on the number of Intact D & E procedures performed before viability and after viability.
Really? So, where did that figure come from that was bantied around to extensively during the debate last year that this procedure was only used a "few hundred" times a year? Can we really put ANY trust in people who would commit such a heinous act at partial birth abortion about ANYTHING - including figures for their own cruelty?
The proponents of the ban on so-called "partial birth" abortion began this debate by implying that healthy women in the 7th, 8th and 9th months of pregnancy were having abortions on healthy fetuses. Look at their diagrams -- the pictures of the healthy, fully-formed Gerber babies. Listen to their rhetoric -- using terms like infanticide -- three inches from life.
Three inches from life. Three inches from the protection of the Constitution.
We responded by bringing forth women whose wanted pregnancies had gone tragically awry in the 7th, 8th, and 9th months to show that women were not having abortions on healthy fetuses after viability. No evidence has been brought forward to the contrary.
The women brought forth were THEMSELVES the best witnesses against them. Most of the women who stood behind Clinton when he vetoed the bill said at the time that their babies had "trisomy 13." That is hydrocephelus. Thousands of babies are born naturally every years with hydrocephelus and 80% of them live normal lives with silicone brain shunts. Why should it be "admirable" (a word used by President Clinton in referring to the women) to kill an unborn, handicapped infant?
The strategy of those who oppose abortion is to distort and inflame the debate in order to weaken support for a woman’s right to choose. We must remember that the goal of opponents of abortion is to make all abortions a crime under all circumstances at any time during pregnancy.
This is one of those sentences that says the exact opposite of what it means. How can you distort this procedure? No one has come forward to say the procedure IS NOT done as described.
We will not let them succeed.
And we who love our children and grandchildren will not fail.