Rebecca Grace
AFA Journal staff writer
January 2007 – In November, the U.S. Supreme Court revisited the issue of partial-birth abortion by hearing oral arguments on the constitutionality of the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 signed into law by President George W. Bush.
The 2003 ban disregards any other personal health concerns the mother may have and prohibits doctors from performing partial-birth abortions unless the mother’s life is at stake – restrictions opponents view as unconstitutional.
Demonstrators gathered outside the judicial building in Washington, D.C., as the high court questioned attorneys on both sides of the legal fight in the related cases of Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood. This is the first time the court addressed the topic of late-term abortion since Stenberg v. Carhart (2000) in which a similar statute was struck down because it failed to contain an exception clause for a woman’s health.
“In addition, the majority of Stenberg found that the statute could reasonably be interpreted by doctors to include not only the partial-birth procedure but other abortion methods as well, and therefore imposed an unconstitutional burden on women seeking an abortion,” according to The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
For like reasons, abortion proponents find fault with the 2003 ban. But Greg Koukl, president and founder of Stand to Reason, believes the issue at hand is deeper than health concerns. Stand to Reason is an education-based ministry that challenges Christians to think clearly about their faith.
“The real question … before the court is this: Is there a constitutional protection for infanticide? Because that’s what this [partial-birth abortion] is,” he said.
Partial-birth abortion coined by the medical community and pro-abortion advocates as dilation and extraction (D&X), is a procedure in which a baby is partially delivered feet first with only her head remaining in the birth canal. The base of the baby’s skull is punctured making a way for the brain tissues to be suctioned out.
“Abortion happens to a child in her mother’s womb,” Koukl said. “The truth is partial-birth abortion is not an abortion – it’s infanticide with the baby’s head covered.”
Still, abortion rights advocates will justify it based on a woman’s “constitutional rights” and the preservation of her health. But will that be enough to convince the Supreme Court to strike down the late-term abortion ban?
Koukl doesn’t think so.
“There have been massive amounts of medical testimony on this, and I will tell you, as a fact, not one bit of evidence has ever been entered into the record that partial-birth abortion was necessary to preserve a woman’s health,” he explained.
The lack of medical evidence was directly addressed in the November hearing when Chief Justice John Roberts asked if there was any such evidence in the record.
“No, your Honor,” answered Priscilla Smith, an attorney arguing in favor of partial-birth abortion.
“These are the most profound three words in this discussion,” Koukl concluded. “[After all] … these health provisions [would] eviscerate any limitations on abortion because anything could be construed as a health exception. …”
The Court is expected to rule on the case in June 2007.
The impact of this pronouncement on the future of America is of extreme importance considering the power a law has to inform the conscience of a nation. Koukl explained that when a law is good, it educates the conscience of a nation. When a law is bad, it pollutes a nation’s conscience.
“[So] this debate that is presently before the Supreme Court is absolutely crucial to this broader issue of abortion and infanticide because if this [2003] ban is supported … then late-term abortion rights seem much less credible because butchering a living child fully inside her mother’s womb seems just as bad as butchering that same child when two-thirds outside her body, as in partial-birth abortion,” Koukl reasoned. “However, if the ban is struck down … then outright infanticide becomes much more credible because why not just completely deliver the child before taking her life – kind of post-natal abortion.”
Still, Koukl is encouraged by the debate’s lack of medical evidence and the new make-up of the high court whose majority is expected to be more pro-life. Both factors make an overturn of Roe v. Wade more realistic.
“But that time is a ways off, and it may be a difficult battle until then, and we must be wise as serpents in the process of dealing with this issue,” he said. 
