Late Term Abortion Legal Question

[yodermon]

So I'm having an email discussion about abortion with a "single issue voter" ( :eyes: ) and he has asserted the following:

"I've done research and found that the partial birth abortions used to be voluntary and not just for saving the life of the Mother. The bill that was passed banned those abortions but kept in the clause for the life of the Mother."

So my questions are: 1) Was D&X ever "voluntary"? Meaning any woman at any stage of pregnancy could just "volunteer" to have the procedure done at her discretion;

2) Late term abortions in general: Did the Roe v. Wade decision leave it up to the states to outlaw 2nd & 3rd trimester abortions?

3) Since Roe v. Wade, are/were there any states in which a woman in her 3rd trimester (or where the fetus was viable) could just walk into a clinic and get an abortion, no questions asked?

My eyes glaze over when reading legal docs, so any plain-language explanations or links would be wonderfully appreciated.

Thanks
yodermon

[Speck Tater]

1. I had a similar question put to me yesterday

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late-term_abortion

As of 1998, among the 152 most populous countries, 54 either banned abortion entirely or permitted it only to save the life of the pregnant woman.<15> In contrast, another 44 of the 152 most populous countries generally banned late-term abortions after a particular gestational age: 12 weeks (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Rep., Denmark, Estonia, France, Georgia, Greece, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Rep., Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Norway, Russian Fed., Slovak Rep., Slovenia, South Africa, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Yugoslavia), 13 weeks (Italy), 14 weeks (Austria, Belgium, Cambodia, Germany, Hungary, and Romania), 18 weeks (Sweden), viability (Netherlands and to some extent the United States), and 24 weeks (Singapore and the United Kingdom ).<15>

United States

The United States Supreme Court decisions on abortion, including Roe v. Wade, allow states to impose more restrictions on post-viability abortions than during the earlier stages of pregnancy.

As of April 2007, 36 states had bans on late-term abortions that were not facially unconstitutional (i.e. banning all abortions) or enjoined by court order.<16> In addition, the Supreme Court in the case of Gonzales v. Carhart ruled that Congress may ban certain late-term abortion techniques, "both previability and postviability".

Some of the 36 state bans are believed by pro-choice organizations to be unconstitutional.<17><18>The Supreme Court has held that bans must include exceptions for threats to the woman's life, physical health, and mental health, but four states allow late-term abortions only when the woman's life is at risk; four allow them when the woman's life or physical health is at risk, but use a definition of health that pro-choice organizations believe is impermissibly narrow.<16> Assuming that one of these state bans is constitutionally flawed, then that does not necessarily mean that the entire ban would be struck down: "invalidating the statute entirely is not always necessary or justified, for lower courts may be able to render narrower declaratory and injunctive relief."<19>

Also, 13 states prohibit abortion after a certain number of weeks' gestation (usually 24 weeks).<16> The U.S. Supreme Court held in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services that a statute may create "a presumption of viability" after a certain number of weeks, in which case the physician must be given an opportunity to rebut the presumption by performing tests.<20> Therefore, those 13 states must provide that opportunity. Because this provision is not explicitly written into these 13 laws, as it was in the Missouri law examined in Webster, pro-choice organizations believe that such a state law is unconstitutional, but only "to the extent that it prohibits pre-viability abortions".<17>

Ten states require a second physician to approve.<16> The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a requirement of "confirmation by two other physicians" (rather than one other physician) because "acquiescence by co-practitioners has no rational connection with a patient's needs and unduly infringes on the physician's right to practice".<21> Pro-choice organizations such as the Guttmacher Institute therefore interpret some of these state laws to be unconstitutional, based on these and other Supreme Court rulings, at least to the extent that these state laws require approval of a second or third physician.<16>

Nine states have laws that require a second physician to be present during late-term abortion procedures in order to treat a fetus if born alive.<16> The Court has held that a doctor's right to practice is not infringed by requiring a second physician to be present at abortions performed after viability in order to assist in saving the life of the fetus.<22>

[nini]

2. tell him to prove his lies

He won't be able to.


Ask him why the repuke controlled presidency and congress for 6 years didn't do something to overturn RvW. Those idiots are being used by the right during elections. This one issue voter makes me crazy

[Gwendolyn]

3. Oy vey, I've had this same discussion.

Late term abortions were legal at one point, but this changed as of 1998.

Here's a wiki link with a survey, conducted in 1987, listing the reasons women elected to have late term abortions. I know it's wiki, but it's one-stop shopping and if you need more info, you can google from there.

What's important to note is that poverty was often the cause women waited so long to terminate. Some couldn't afford to get medical attention until it was late, others couldn't afford the abortion, couldn't leave work to travel, etc...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late-term_abortion

[sandnsea]

4. Easy answer

When third trimester abortions are now needed to save the life of the mother, or to protect her health, they hack the baby up inside and pull it out.

That's so much better. :sarcasm:

This is and always will be a trumped up issue. The question will always be whether there are safe abortions or whether women should be locked up after risking their life at a back alley butcher.

[GOPNotForMe]

5. My take:

1. No legitimate doctor would perform a "voluntary" late-term abortion. The rare times they were performed was for the life/health of the mother.

2. Roe created a sliding scale, balancing abortion rights with legitimate state interests in protecting fetal life. During the 1st trimester, abortion rights were paramount and state interests were nonexistent. In the 2d trimester, the state had a legitimate interest in regulating abortion in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health and in the 3d trimester, the state had a compelling interest in banning the procedure to preserve fetal life (with a health exception for the mother!).

3. According to medical regulations, this should not happen, but there is no guarantee that every doctor in the country follows medical ethical rules. There have probably been rare instances where a doctor did perform an elective late-term abortion but they probably would have whether the procedure was banned or not. But to be clear, under Roe, abortions during the 3d trimester could be banned outright (with a health exception for the mother).

[Warpy]

6. All states restricted abortion after the first trimester

and, while Roe theoretically made it possible for a woman to abort in the third trimester because she'd just won a cruise in a raffle, it also provided for that regulation after the first trimester making it impossible in practice.

Add to that fact that there aren't any docs I know of who would do such a thing, allowing a woman to abort on a whim in the third trimester, and you have a perfect picture of churchy hysteria over nothing.

The fact is that there are often very compelling reasons for late term abortion that have nothing to do with whim and not always with maternal health. Often they're done because the fetus is so damaged that it would survive only a hellish few hours after birth.

The reproductive slavery people don't want you to know any of this.

[noonwitch]

11. I know I shouldn't think it's funny

"Roe theoretically made it possible for a woman to abort in the third trimetster because she'd just won a cruise in a raffle"

[MadAnne]

7. Of all the abortions that should be regulated as purely a

medical procedure late term abortions are the ones. Trying to legislate this is like legislating who should have heart surgery. This is a medical issue, not a legal one.

[gollygee]

8. I made this comparison to a Republican friend

Yes, I have Republican friends.

I asked if he thought it was necessary to have a law making it illegal to give a gun to a six-month old child. My friend likes to hunt and target shoot, so he has guns.

He said, no that's silly, nobody would give a six-month-old baby a gun so no law is necessary. That would just be an excuse by the anti-gun crowd to limit gun rights.

Uh-huh. Nobody goes through 7 months of pregnancy to have an abortion for no good reason either. Any woman who is 7 months pregnant wants her baby. If she's faced with the choice of abortion, it is because something awful happened and she's trying to make the best choice she can under terrible circumstances.

[yodermon]

9. THANKS for the replies everyone, very helpful.

:hi:

[Hell Hath No Fury]

10. First, it is called a D&X...

-- there is no such medical proceedure called a "partial birth abortion". D&X (dilation and extraction) is simply a type of abortion technique, used when a fetus is past a certain point in gestation. The reasons for the use of the technique are usually due to the health of the mother, or a fetus that has died in utero or has some form of catastrophic birth defect it will not survive.


Now, on to your questions.

Roe vs Wade allowed for State regulation of 2nd trimester abortions and strong regulation of 3rd trimester abortions, so long as the State made (at the minimun) an exception for the life of the mother. Since Roe vs. Wade, no State has allowed a woman to terminate a 3rd trimester pregnancy on demand -- by any means, including the surgical technique called D&X. It just didn't happen due to State regulations allowed by Roe.

Third trimester abortions are a very tricky thing, and finding a doctor who will perform one is a task.