N.H. Fears Chilling Effect of Federal Abortion Ban
WASHINGTON – Congress is expected send President Bush a bill this month that would ban a rarely used abortion procedure, a decision abortion-rights advocates say would create a chilling effect on doctors who perform other types of abortions.
As senators prepare to vote on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 — which the House passed earlier this month and the President has said he will sign into law — New Hampshire abortion-rights advocates predict the bill’s language actually could affect more-common abortion procedures.
“Because the law is so vague, it’s likely that abortion providers will feel the risk of prosecution,” said Jennifer Frizzell, public affairs director for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. “Doctors won’t be able to consider the best and most appropriate abortion-care options for their patients without the threat of prosecution hanging over their heads.”
If signed into law, the bill would represent the first ban on a specific abortion procedure since the Supreme Court guaranteed a woman’s right to abortion in its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. House and Senate negotiators omitted a clause in the Senate bill that would have affirmed that landmark ruling.
The House passed the partial-birth ban in early October by a vote of 281-142. Both New Hampshire House members, Rep. Charlie Bass and Rep. Jeb Bradley, voted in favor of the legislation.
The Senate passed a similar measure early this year and is expected to pass this one as well. President Clinton twice vetoed bans on partial-birth abortions. Both Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) voted for the bill when the Senate first took it up.
The legislation describes partial-birth abortion as a procedure in which a physician kills a partially delivered fetus. Doctors who refuse to comply with the law could face fines and up to two years in jail.
The bill contains an exception only when a mother’s life – but not her health – is in danger. It’s a critical distinction. Abortion-rights advocates have said they will move quickly to challenge the law in court, citing a Supreme Court ruling three years ago that struck down a Nebraska ban because it didn’t contain a health exception.
The bill states that partial-birth abortions are “never necessary” to preserve a woman’s health.
“The vast majority of them are done on healthy women, and healthy babies of healthy women,” said Roger Stenson, executive director of New Hampshire Citizens for Life, an affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee. “It’s not done for the hard cases.”
Abortion-rights supporters contend the procedure has been used to protect women’s health. Claire Ebel, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in New Hampshire, said the procedure has been used in emergency situations when a fetus’ deformed skull has swelled with fluids to a point that it would harm a woman if delivered vaginally.
“The procedure performed in the later stages of pregnancy is always done for the woman’s health, always,” she said. “There are no exceptions. No one aborts a fetus to get into a prom dress.”
A survey conducted by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on sexual and reproductive health research and analysis, found that 2,200 “partial-birth” abortions were performed in the United States in 2000. More than 1.3 million abortions were performed in the country that year.
Abortion-rights advocates argue the bill’s language is “misleading” and “inexact,” and could outlaw commonly used second-term abortion procedures that occur as early as 12 weeks into a pregnancy.
“It’s a vague term that’s used by anti-abortion activists, but it’s not recognized in any medical dictionary,” Frizzell said. “And it’s a political definition, not a medical definition.”
New Hampshire health care facilities and Planned Parenthood centers generally perform abortions only during the first trimester of pregnancy, according to Frizzell. Private- practice doctors usually handle second-trimester abortions and any potential emergencies late in pregnancy, she added.
Ebel said the ban could threaten women’s lives.
“It is absolutely unacceptable at any time to give lawmakers the right to tell a doctor what she or he may or may not do in the operating room,” Ebel said.
“At some point even the most rabid anti-choice legislators have to get it,” she said. “What they need to get is that the women in America — Republican, Democrat, independent, teenagers, middle-aged and all the women in between — will never go back. We will never again surrender our rights to autonomy over our own bodies.”
Stenson, of New Hampshire Citizens for Life, said there is a distinction between the procedure defined in the bill and more-common abortion practices.
“This doesn’t ban abortions,” he said. “This bans a specific technique, which is so brutal that it just chills the hearts of everybody in the United States that this kind of thing can be done.”
The Center for Reproductive Rights, which has filed suits against a number of anti-abortion measures, has promised to challenge the law as soon as the president signs it.
“The Supreme Court has already said that a law like this would have ‘tragic health consequences,’ ” Nancy Northup, president of the Washington-based center, said in a statement. “We will do everything in our power to prevent this dangerous ban from taking effect.”
Abortion opponents speak of the bill in benevolent terms.
“Banning this practice will have a á compassion-inducing effect on our culture,” Stenson said. “We’ve been so desensitized by violence in the United States, including the violence of abortion á, that saying no to this particular technique is a step in the right direction of making a more compassionate culture.”
