Abortion Memorial ServiceSenate approves partial-birth abortion banwww.statenews.com/article.phtml?pk=20192
Senate approves partial-birth abortion ban
By DON JORDAN
The State News
A bill restricting partial-birth abortions was approved by the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, prompting mixed reactions from local politicians and activists.
The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 was approved in a 64-34 vote.
It now heads to President Bush, who has said he's eager to sign the bill. His signature would make it federal law.
"It deals with the most gruesome form of abortion," said U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton. "It is a terrible procedure, and I think a civilized nation could do much better."
The bill defines partial-birth abortion as a procedure in which the person performing the abortion "delivers a living fetus until É the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother É or any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus."
The bill allows partial-birth abortions necessary to protect a mother whose life is endangered by her pregnancy.
A similar state bill was vetoed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm early this month. The bill, called the Legal Birth Definition Act, defines the moment a person is legally born as when any part of the fetus is expelled from a woman's body.
Sue Wagner, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan, said the federal bill uses the graphic nature of partial-birth abortion to further the anti-abortion agenda.
Of the 29,231 abortions performed in 2002 in Michigan, only about nine cases involved partial-birth techniques, Wagner said.
"It should be the choice between the woman and her doctor, not between the woman and her politician," said Wagner, who argued that partial-birth abortion is a safe procedure for women in their second and third trimesters of pregnancy.
Wagner said her biggest complaint with the bill is that it does not protect a woman's health and is therefore unconstitutional.
And she wasn't the only one.
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, and U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, both cast dissenting votes for the bill.
Although Levin and Stabenow voted 'No,' 17 other Democrats joined 47 Republicans in the affirmative Senate decision.
Wagner said the bill doesn't take all cases into account.
"I know a woman who found out she had breast cancer six months into her pregnancy and had the procedure before she had radiation therapy," Wagner said.
"Under this new bill, she would not be protected anymore."
For international relations senior Kathy Savard, the bill's passage is a victory.
"It's wonderful that it's a bipartisan bill supported on both sides," the member and former president of MSU Students for Life said.
"This is a major victory for America in general. At our next meeting, we'll have a mini-celebration, of course."
But political science senior Preeti Prasad, a member of MSU's Students for Choice, said women's rights are on the line.
"If we lose our right to choose, it will go back to back-alley abortions using needles and coat hangers," she said, "which obviously would be a big problem."
Don Jordan can be reached at jordand3@msu.edu.
Anybody who supports partial-birth abortions has something seriously wrong with them. That's all I have to say.
| View dfilename Return Home |