Description

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is a United States law prohibiting a form of late-term abortion that the Act calls partial-birth abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the term "partial-birth abortion" in the act pertains to a procedure that is medically called intact dilation and extraction. Under this law, "Any physician who, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both." The law was enacted in 2003, and in 2007 its constitutionality was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Gonzales v. Carhart.