Partial birth abortion

Partial birth abortion, also known by the medical term "Intact dilation and extraction", is a late-term abortive procedure in which all of a fetus (except for the head) is removed from the womb through the cervix (the same pathway through which birth occurs; hence the name), and is then killed. The procedure is a relatively uncommon one, but due to its grisly nature, has become an important battleground within the greater abortion controversy.

Congress passed laws to ban the procedure in 1996 and 1997, but the bill was vetoed by President Clinton and Congress was just short of the votes necessary to override it. The United States Congress enacted the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003 and President Bush signed it into law.

The Supreme Court upheld the ban by a 5 to 4 decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, on 18 April 2007.

From PriestsForLife.org The ban prohibits:

"knowingly perform[ing] a partial-birth abortion...that is [not] necessary to save the life of the mother," 18 U.S.C. Section 1531(a). It defines "partial-birth abortion," Section 1531(b)(1), as a procedure in which the doctor: "(A) deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the [mother's] body..., or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunck past the navel is outside the [mother's] body..., for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus"; and "(B) performs the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the fetus."

References

"Partial birth abortions" only count for about 0.17% of all abortions and are only performed in extreme cases. In cases where this procedure is performed, it is necessary to preserve the health of the mother as well as her ability to have more children.