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Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Trials Continue to Shock and Dismay

NEW YORK, April 7, 2004 (LifeSIteNews.com) - The American Center for Law and Justice's Jay Sekulow, in a daily update on the ACLJ web-site, publishes highlights of the dialogue in the partial-birth abortion ban challenge being heard before Judge Richard Casey.

In today's testimony, Judge Casey questioned a pathologist who was called by the National Abortion Federation, to establish the advantage of having an intact fetus for the purposes of identifying fetal abnormalities. Judge Casey asked the doctor about diagnoses made in her pathology lab. Judge Casey asked, "The diagnosis of the abortion is incorrect sometimes?"

A: "Well, I am not certain as to what you mean."
Q: "Does it happen that on occasion a diagnosis of specific fetal abnormality is incorrect?"
A: "Yes, sometimes."
Q: "So that abortion was performed because of an anomaly that does not exist? They thought that the condition existed, and when you do your report you find that it did not?"
A: "Yes, that's right."
Q: "Can you have an anomaly that you could live with?"
A: "Yes that is possible."

More graphic testimony followed, having to do with the procedure itself.

The original Roe v. Wade decision was followed by the Doe v. Bolton decision, which delineated the circumstances under which abortions would be allowed, namely for the "health" of the mother . The Doe case defined the scope of the "health" exception as follows: "The medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors -- physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age -- relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health." In the only state where medical records reveal the reason for partial-birth abortion, Kansas, the mental health of the mother "is the main or only reason why these procedures are performed," Sekulow says.

Sekulow, in A Trial Notebook, then quotes several political leaders, for example: Senator Mike DeWine, said: "In fact, we have a real-life example of just how this power to define a mother's health would be used. Kansas is currently the only State...that requires partial-birth abortions to be reported...separate from other abortions. In 1999…Every single one of these partial-birth abortions, 182 out of 182, were reported by the abortionist as being performed on viable children for mental as opposed to physical health reasons."

Read the complete up-to-date notes from the New York trial at: http://www.aclj.org/resources/prolife/pba/040329_trial_notebook.asp

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