Glenn Woiceshyn

Late-term abortions, sometimes referred to as “partial-birth” abortions, should not be banned, maintains Glenn Woiceshyn in the following viewpoint. Such procedures, which are relatively rare, are essential when a woman’s life or health are threatened by her pregnancy or when a fetus has serious physical defects, the author explains. Moreover, he asserts, the attempt to criminalize late-term abortions is at heart an attempt to outlaw all abortions. Woiceshyn, who wrote this Viewpoint two months before a Nebraska ban on late-term abortions was declared unconstitutional, is a home-school teacher and a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. What happens during an intact dilation and extraction (D&X) procedure, according to Woiceshyn"
2. According to the author, why do anti-abortionists use the term “partial birth” to describe late-term abortions"
3. In Woiceshyn’s opinion, when do an infant’s individual rights begin"

Anti-abortionists are making a comeback. A woman’s right to abortion is rapidly being eroded by the proliferation of state laws banning certain types of abortions. On April 25, 2000, in a case known as Carhart v. Stenberg (No. 99-830), the Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of one such law: Nebraska’s law banning so-called “partial-birth” abortions. [In June 2000, the court declared this ban unconstitutional.]

When abortion was illegal in America, many women died or suffered serious medical problems from either self- induced or illegal “back-alley” abortions. Women streamed into emergency rooms with punctured wombs, massive bleeding, and rampant infections.

Thanks to the Roe v. Wade (1973) Supreme Court decision, women today have access to safe abortions by medically trained professionals under sanitary conditions. But anti-abortionists—so-called “pro-lifers”—are changing all this.

A Dangerous Precedent

State laws banning “partial-birth” abortions establish a precedent for criminalizing other types of abortion—as America slides down the bloody slope to “back-alley” abortions.

Those who are truly pro-life must grasp the ominous implications of and underlying motives behind such antiabortion laws—before it’s too late.

“Partial-birth” abortion, most commonly known as intact dilation and extraction (D&X), is designed primarily to be used in the case of 5- and 6-month-old fetuses that are dying, malformed, or threaten the woman’s health or life. The procedure involves pulling the fetus from the womb, except for the head which is too large to pass without injuring the woman. The head is then collapsed to allow removal. This procedure is designed for the maximum protection of the woman. The late-term alternative to D&X, one that doesn’t require partial removal, involves dismembering the fetus in the womb before extraction—a much riskier procedure.

Anti-abortionists coined the term “partial birth” to suggest that the partially removed fetus is no longer “unborn,” and, therefore, Roe v. Wade no longer applies (so they allege). But linguistic manipulation can’t create an essential distinction when none exists. A woman has a right to her own body, and, if she chooses to abort, then all effort should be made to protect the woman from injury. To rule otherwise is to negate this right.

A Perversion of Individual Rights

Banning any type of abortion to “protect the fetus” necessarily grants rights to the fetus—an utter perversion of individual rights. If a woman has no right to her own body, then by what logic does a fetus (which, by definition, is a biological parasite) have a right to the woman’s body? Properly, an infant’s rights begin after the fetus is removed from the mother’s body and its umbilical cord cut.

It is a woman’s individual rights—to her life, to her liberty, and to the pursuit of her happiness—that sanctions her right to have an abortion. Once “fetal rights” are granted to one stage of the pregnancy, nothing will prevent their extension to all stages. “Fetal rights” are a gimmick to destroy a woman’s individual rights.

Tragically, many “pro-choicers” have conceded the “partial-birth” debate to the anti-abortionists and accept a ban as a compromise (and merely quibble about its scope). Such “pro-choicers” have apparently been hoodwinked by the anti-abortionists’ strategy of emotionalism and evasion designed to disguise their deeper purpose.

The anti-abortionists’ strategy involves focusing solely on the fetus and describing the abortion in gruesome detail. Their professed compassion for the fetus apparently leaves no room for considering the woman’s health and happiness. For them, waving a picture of a bloody, mangled fetus constitutes an argument. If so, then so does waving a picture of a woman whose future was ruined because she was denied an abortion—or of a woman bloody and mangled by a “back-alley” abortion.

A picture is not an argument—and should not be allowed as a cover-up.

An Attempt to Ban All Abortions

While anti-abortionists’ attacks are primarily focused on rarely performed late-term abortions, they zealously want all abortions banned. Helen Alvare, a spokeswoman for the Catholic Bishops and a staunch enemy of D&X, has declared, “In a moral sense all abortions are equally awful.”

Saving Women’s Lives

It is compelling to review a few public cases of women whose lives would have been endangered had [late-term abortion bans] been law at the time of their pregnancies. . . . Coreen Costello from Agoura, California. In April 1995, seven months pregnant with her third child, Coreen and her husband Jim found out that a lethal neuromuscular disease had left their much-wanted daughter unable to survive. Its body had stiffened and was frozen, wedged in a transverse position. In addition, amniotic fluid had puddled and built up to dangerous levels in Coreen’s uterus. Devout Christians and opposed to abortion, the Costellos agonized for over two weeks about their decision and baptized the fetus in utero. Finally, Coreen’s increasing health problems forced them to accept the advice of numerous medical experts that the intact dilation and extraction (D&X) was, indeed, the best option for Coreen’s own health, and the abortion was performed. Later, in June 1996, Coreen gave birth to a healthy son.

Maureen Mary Britell from Sandwich, Massachusetts. Maureen and her husband Andrew, practicing Catholics, were expecting their second child in early 1994 when, at six months’ gestation, a sonogram revealed that the fetus had anencephaly. No brain was developing, only a brain stem. Experts at the New England Medical Center in Boston confirmed that the fetus the Britells had named Dahlia would not survive. The Britells’ parish priest supported their decision to induce labor and terminate the pregnancy. During the delivery, a complication arose and the placenta would not drop. The umbilical cord had to be cut, aborting the fetus while still in delivery in order to prevent serious health risks for Maureen. Dahlia had a Catholic funeral.

John M. Swomley, Humanist, March 13, 1998.

According to anti-abortionists’ dogma, God places the soul in the womb at conception. Hence, via a leap of faith, the fertilized egg—a tiny speck of cells—is granted the status of human being. At that moment, the woman’s status is demoted to that of slave and breeding mare—and her womb becomes God’s property (which, in practice, means the government’s property). The rights of the woman have therefore been sacrificed to the alleged rights of the fetus. According to this dogma, abortion is murder at any stage of the pregnancy (which explains why some “pro-lifers” feel morally sanctioned to kill doctors and bomb abortion clinics).

The anti-abortionists’ war against “partial-birth” abortions is a smokescreen to ban all abortions. Abortion is a woman’s moral right. To protect that right the Supreme Court must declare Nebraska’s law prohibiting “partial-birth” abortions as unconstitutional. Furthermore, “pro-choicers” must reject compromise and fight any law prohibiting abortion on principle—the principle of individual rights—the principle upon which this pro-rights country was founded.