Re: Partial-Birth Abortion [SK]

Serge,
When critics call our descriptions of partial-birth abortion extreme, I first ask them to describe the procedure:

"Obviously, you must be an expert on partial-birth abortion to call my description medically inaccurate and extreme. So here is your chance to set the record straight. Why don’t you explain the procedure so those listening can hear for themselves where my description is extreme?"

Once the question is put like that, the game is up. Without exception, my critic either 1) doesn't know the specifics of the procedure, or 2) knows full well the specifics, but tries to dodge the question.

Either way, I proceed as follows:

"Apparently, you don’t know what partial-birth abortion is. Otherwise, you would answer my question and describe it for the audience. This is truly amazing. You favor it, but you don’t even know what it is? Well, let me explain it by quoting late-term abortionist Dr. Martin Haskell, who invented the procedure you support. Explaining how he delivers the child feet first, leaving only the head in the birth canal, Haskell writes:

The surgeon then forces scissors into the base of the skull. Having safely entered the skull, he spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening. The surgeon removes the scissors and introduces a suction catheter into the hole and evacuates the skull contents. (“Second Trimester Abortion From Every Angle,” Paper presented at the National Abortion Federation Convention in Dallas, Texas, September 13-14, 1992.)

Ladies and gentlemen, my friend Greg Koukl is right: Partial-birth abortion is not extremist rhetoric. It's infanticide with the baby's head covered. If my opponent is still not persuaded, perhaps this editorial published by the Journal of the American Medical Association will help. Dr.'s Sprang and Neehorf write,

Conflicting information about intact D&X [partial-birth abortion] and its frequency catalyzed prominent medical organizations to evaluate the procedure. In 1996, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) convened a special committee to review it. According to the ACOG panel, intact D&X has been defined to consist of four elements: (1) the deliberate dilation of the cervix, usually over a sequence of days; (2) instrumental conversion of the fetus to a footling breech; (3) breech extraction of the body, excepting the head; and (4) partial evacuation of the intercrainal contents of a living fetus to effect vaginal delivery of a dead but otherwise intact fetus. (M. LeRoy Sprang, MD; Mark G. Neerhof, "Rationale for Banning Abortions Late in Pregnancy," JAMA Vol. 280, pp. 744-747, Aug. 26, 1998)

If partial-birth abortion does not accurately describe the procedure above, nothing can.