This issue is about late-term abortions, in the second and third trimesters.

At least 90% of abortions are performed in

the first trimester, when other procedures are more appropriate. In partial-birth abortion (PBA), also known as
Dilation and Extraction (D&X), the woman's cervix is dilated, and the foetus is partially removed from the womb,
feet first. The surgeon inserts a sharp object into the back of the foetus' head, removes it, and inserts a vacuum tube
through which the brain is extracted. The head of the foetus contracts at this point and allows the foetus to be more
easily removed from the womb. The main justifications for the use of D&X are: that the foetus is dead; that
continued pregnancy will endanger the life of the mother; that continued pregnancy will adversely affect the
mothers health; that the foetus is so malformed that it will never gain consciousness after birth. More controversial
is the use of the technique for healthy foetuses when the mothers life is not at risk. This is banned by several state
Medical Associations in the US, but many physicians have reported performing them, mainly for women who are
suicidally depressed, but also for rape victims and for very young pregnant women. It is estimated that about 3,000
partial-birth abortions are performed in the United States every year. Bill Clinton vetoed bills banning partial-birth
abortions in 1995, 1997 and 1999. George W. Bush has indicated that he is in favour of introducing a federal law
banning partial-birth abortion except where the foetus is dead or severely malformed, or where the mothers life (not
the mothers health or welfare) is at risk. Although this is not necessarily a US-specific debate, the issue is on the
political, and indeed legislative, agenda in the USA to an extent which is not matched elsewhere, and some of the
arguments here reflect this.NB In addition to the arguments below, this debate may well employ arguments from
debates about abortion in general -

pros
Partial-birth abortion is disgusting. Like all abortions,
it involves the killing of an unborn child, but unlike
first trimester abortions there is no doubt that the
foetus can feel pain. The procedure involves sticking a
pair of scissors into a babys brain, enlarging the hole,
sucking the brain out with a catheter and then crushing
the skull. It is entirely unacceptable to do this to a
living human being. Psychological damage to the
mother as a result of rape or teenage pregnancy or
depression is in the end less significant than the
physical damage - death - caused to the child.
cons
Nobody would choose to have a partial-birth abortion
over a much simpler abortion in the first trimester.
Partial-birth abortions are either medically or
psychologically necessary. If a young mother either
does not find out she is pregnant or is too scared to tell
anyone, if a woman is raped and decides at any stage
that she does not want the baby, if a woman is
threatening suicide if she is forced to carry a baby to
term, we should not make her suffer further by
forbidding her from ending the pregnancy. For all sorts
of reasons, many women do not seek any kind of
medical help until late in their pregnancy - this should
not mean they forfeit their right to an abortion. In any
case, if abortion is allowed at all, and given that the
foetus is not recognised in law as a human being, it
should be nobodys business but the mothers whether
and at what stage she chooses to have an abortion.

Although many people who are against partial-birth
abortion are against abortion in general, there is no
necessary link, as partial-birth abortion is a particularly
horrifying form of abortion. This is for the reasons
already explained: it involves a deliberate, murderous
physical assault on a half-born baby, whom we know
for certain will feel pain and suffer as a result. We
accept that there is some legitimate medical debate
about whether embryos and earlier foetuses feel pain;
there is no such debate in this case, and this is why
partial-birth abortion is uniquely horrific, and uniquely
unjustifiable.
Opposition to partial-birth abortion is part of a strategy
by anti-abortionists to ban abortion in general - partial-
birth abortions form a tiny proportion of all abortions,
but from a medical and psychological point of view
they ought to be the least controversial. The reason for
this focus is that late-term abortions are the most
obviously distasteful, because late-term foetuses look
more like babies than embryos or foetuses at an earlier
developmental stage. Late-term abortions therefore
make for the best pro-life campaigning material. By
attempting to focus the debate here, campaigners are
aiming to conflate all abortions with late-term
abortions, and to increase opposition to all abortion on

Healthy third-trimester foetuses can, with good
medical care, survive outside the womb. It is absurd
that we - rightly - spend great resources trying to keep
premature babies alive, and yet actively intervene to
induce the premature birth of, and then crush the skulls
of, perfectly healthy foetuses.
If birth is the crucial dividing-line we use to decide
when legal personhood begins, then we should not be
allowed to induce birth and then deliberately kill a
foetus during that process - this is different from early
abortion in which birth is induced and the foetus dies
naturally. Partial-birth abortion is murder, even on the
pro-choice understanding of personhood.
Tragically, some babies are unwanted, but this does not
mean that we should kill them. There are plenty of
other options, notably adoption. If anything, the case
for adoption is more compelling in the third trimester,
because the pregnancy is nearer to its natural end and
there is less time for the mother to have to put up with
it. Unwanted pregnancy and adoption may be
psychologically harmful, but in many cases so is
abortion, particularly at a late stage of pregnancy when
the mother can see that the dead foetus is recognisably
a baby - the guilt feelings associated with feeling that
one is responsible for murdering a child can be
unbearable.
Allowing partial-birth abortion is utterly inconsistent
with the growing, and legally recognised, respect for
foetal rights in the United States. If a man can sue the
mother of his child for taking drugs during pregnancy
which discolour their childs teeth, if pregnant women
can be banned from the smoking sections of
restaurants, what sense does it make to allow exactly
the same foetuses to have their skulls deliberately
crushed?
There is a vast amount of support in the United States
that basis.
The distinction is not absurd at all. The issue is not
about the stage of development of the foetus/baby, but
about whether or not it is wanted. It makes sense to try
to keep a wanted baby alive. It does not make sense to
force someone to continue to carry an unwanted foetus.
This is misleading - in partial-birth abortion, as the
term suggests, the foetus is not fully born when it is
killed: the purpose of collapsing the skull is to allow
the foetus head to pass more easily through the birth
canal. At no point in the process is a live foetus
entirely outside the womb, so legal personhood is
never an issue.
Arguing that adoption is a good option shows a
fundamental lack of awareness of what is involved in
carrying an unwanted foetus to term. Pregnancy can be
stressful at the best of times; being forced to carry an
unwanted child against your will is enormously
traumatic, and can cause permanent psychological
harm, as can the knowledge that your own unwanted
child is growing up elsewhere and may one day return
to find you. If a mother chooses to carry a foetus to
term and then give it up for adoption, thats fine, but
nobody should force her to do so.
The culture of foetal rights reflects a dangerous
litigious trend in American society, and implies a view
of pregnant women as being nothing more than baby-
carrying machines whose independence and autonomy
should be restricted and whose motivations should be
questioned at every turn. If this has implications for the
abortion debate, then those implications are profoundly
damaging to women in general. In any case, the mother
of a wanted baby has entirely different responsibilities
toward the unborn foetus from the mother of an
unwanted baby - thats why our society allows both
abortions and antenatal classes.
These opinion polls are misleading, as they force
 respondents to choose between an outright ban or no
control at all it is impossible for them to register
support for partial-birth abortion in cases where the
mothers physical or psychological health is in danger.
for a ban on partial-birth abortion. Opinion polls have
A majority of Americans are still in favour of the right
shown a consistent increase in support for a ban: as
to abortion. More importantly, this should not be the
high as 66% in favour to 29% against in May 2000.
business of the general public or of legislators. Nobody
Furthermore, in 1997 the House of Representatives
who would prefer not to have a partial-birth abortion
voted 295-136, and the Senate 64-36, in favour of a
will be made to have one. Most people who want it
ban. For President Clinton to veto it was undemocratic;
banned will never face a situation where it directly
for President Bush not to pass it would be to break a
affects them in any case. We should leave decisions up
campaign promise.
to the people who are directly affected by them - not to
outsiders, who are free to express their opinion but not
to impose it on everyone else. This is a campaign
promise George Bush should not keep.