Partial birth abortion
Partial birth abortion is a medical procedure in which a baby is almost born (except for the head) and then killed. [1]
Partial birth abortions are performed during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Congress tried to ban partial birth abortions in 1996 and 1997, but was vetoed by President Clinton[2]. The United States Congress enacted the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act [3] 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 [4] 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."