Partial Birth Abortion

Partial Birth Abortion

The controversial known partial abortion or also known as intact dilation and extraction (IDX or intact D&X), intact dilation and evacuation (intact D&E), dilation and extraction (D&X), and intrauterine cranial decompression is a surgical procedure where the fetus is removed from the womb through the cervix and killed in the process. This form of abotion can also be used to remove a fetus that has already died but is developed enough to to require dilation of the cervix for removal. This procedure has four main elements. First, the cervix is dialated. Second, guided by ultrasound the abortionist positions the baby to be pulled out in the breech position. The abortionist then goes in with forceps grabbing the fetus's leg and pulls everything but the head out throught the birth canal. At this point in the Abortion the fetus is still alive. An incision is then made at the base of the fetus's skull, scissors are then inserted in the the incision and opened to widen the opening. A suction catheter is inserted into the opening and the brain is then sucked out allowing the skull to callapse making it easier for the head to pass through the birth canal. The placenta is removed and the uterine wall is vacuum aspirated using a suction curette. This procedure is used to abort women who are 20 to 32 weeks pregnant, or even later into pregnancy. Babies born at 23 weeks or older often survive. This procedure eliminates that possibility. Of all partial abortions performed eighty percent of the fetuses were normal and capable of living a normal healthy life.

Partial Birth Abortion is currently legal in almost the entire United States. The baby is killed when it is only a few inches from being given full U.S. citizenship and the legal right to life. Partial birth abortion is a target of pro-life advocates who believe the procedure illustrates their contention that abortion, and especially late-term abortion, is immoral. Critics consider this procedure murder. Some people, both for and against abortion rights, see partial birth abortion as a central battleground in the wider abortion debate, representing an attempt to set a legal precedent so as to gradually erode access to all abortion methods. Dr. Martin Haskell has called the partial birth abortion procedure "a quick, surgical outpatient method" for late second-trimester and early third-trimester abortions. The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 describes it as "a gruesome and inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary." Lawyers and others who favor he ban, have said there are alternative and more widely used procedures that are still legal, which involves dismembering the fetus in the uterus. Defending the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban requires arguing to judges that pulling a fetus from a woman's body in dismembered pieces is legal, medically acceptable, and safe; but that pulling a fetus out intact, so that if the woman wishes the fetus can be wrapped in a blanket and handed to her, is appropriately punishable by a fine, or up to two years of prison, or both. There is also controversy about why this procedure is used. Although prominent defenders of the method assert that it was used only or mostly in acute medical circumstances, in the vast majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20 weeks or more along. Many nurses or individuals who have seen this