I have read so much emotional rhetoric on how this procedure is absolutely necessary to save the life of the mother in some circumstances that I wanted to see if there were some physicians who disagreed with that.
As a physician practicing maternal-fetal medicine, I have never seen an instance in which a partial-birth abortion was necessary for the life or health of the mother. In truly emergent situations such as severe hemorrhage, there is not enough time to go through the process of getting the cervix dilated sufficiently. If the termination is being done because of a lethal fetal anomaly, the patient can be given enough additional time to allow for normal vaginal delivery.
I think we all realize that it is less awkward for the obstetrician to deliver a dead child than a living one when the whole purpose of the procedure is to be rid of the child. This is not a good enough reason to allow partial-birth abortion to remain legal. The whole country will be interested to see how the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists stands on this issue.
In a very unbalanced article in that appeared in the Boston Globe on October 28, reporter Carol Cruzan Morton noted that the bill contains congressional findings that the banned method is “risky and medically unjustified,” but she immediately asserted, in the Globe’s own voice, that these are “claims that most doctors dispute.” No poll of doctors or other authority was cited to support this assertion, nor has any been provided by the Globe in response to subsequent requests.
The only poll of physicians on the subject we have seen was conducted by Medical Economics and published in October, 2002, asking the question, “Should the procedure that’s often called ‘partial-birth abortion’ remain legal?” Among all physicians, only 27% were for keeping the method legal, while 44% said it should not be legal (a plurality), and 28% weren’t sure. Among the obstretrician-gynecologists, however, there was a clear majority of 57% for the ban, and only 33% for keeping the method legal. Medical Economics Senior Editor Dorothy L. Pennachio wrote that among various medical specialties, “Ob/gyns are least likely to be on the fence — only 10 percent say they’re not sure; they’re also most likely (57 percent) to believe the procedure should be outlawed.” See:
http://www.memag.com/be_core/search/show_article_search.jsp?searchurl=/be_core/content/journals/m/data/2002/1011/ethabort.html&title=Abortion%3A+A+right+or+an+outrage%3F&navtype=m&query=abortion
A 1999 random sample of 2,000 hospital-based registered nurses by RN magazine found that 63% favored a ban on partial-birth abortion.
http://www.conservativenews.org/InDepth/archive/199903/IND19990315c.html
and interestingly, this one from National Public Radio!
“We had extensive medical testimony indicating that a partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary, and, in fact, is actually oftentimes harmful to the woman. And that’s the reason we did not include a health exception,” Chabot said.
Instead, the law includes a series of declarations, known as “findings.” Among the findings: The procedure is unrecognized by the mainstream medical community; there have been no articles published in peer-reviewed journals that establish the procedure is superior to other abortion procedures; and the procedure threatens the pregnant woman’s health.
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