by Rod D. Martin
October 20, 1999

Today, the Senate begins debate on S.1692, its third attempt to ban partial birth abortion.

Twice before, Bill Clinton has vetoed a ban on the most barbaric “medical” procedure ever utilized outside Nazi Germany, and twice a handful of left-wing extremists in the Senate has helped him along. In so doing, Clinton has merely shown his character; but his backers have shown a willingness to condone literally anything, and have thus demonstrated clearly why they must be defeated and removed next year.

Partial birth abortion is so truly ghastly that even most pro-choicers disavow it, and the usually pro-abortion American Medical Association has officially called for its abolition. It frankly takes a strong stomach just to write about it.

For those who are not familiar with the operation, a brief description is appropriate. After dilating the cervix for two days, the abortionist pulls the live fetus (Latin for “baby”) feet-first out of the womb. Carefully leaving the head inside the mother — because failure to do so would leave the doctor open to murder charges — he then punctures the base of the skull with scissors, inserts a hollow tube into the wound, and sucks out the baby’s brain. According to the president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the all-but born infant feels every bit of this unimaginable agony, just as would you or I, regardless of anesthesia.

To make matters worse, the majority of these abortions are performed on babies that are “viable” within the Supreme Court’s definition: even under twisted liberal logic, there is no Constitutional “right” to abort them. And the procedure is carried out all the way through the ninth month, on babies the vast majority of whom are perfectly healthy.

It takes a hard-core abortion fanatic to support a procedure like this. As Professor Jean Wright told the Senate two years ago, “this procedure, if it were done on an animal in my institution, would not make it through the institutional review process. The animal would be more protected than this.” But in the interest of “feeling our pain,” Bill Clinton firmly upholds a woman’s right to inhuman torture.

Partial birth is such an obvious evil that earlier this year in Arkansas, which boasts the most heavily-Democratic state legislature in America, the House of Representatives voted 88-3 to ban it after almost zero floor debate. Yet Arkansans like Bill Clinton and his friend Congressman Vic Snyder, who is actually a medical doctor, actively support what even Daniel Patrick Moynihan calls “infanticide.” Extremism abounds.

Why does the President support this barbarism? Because, he says, the bill to ban it does not create an exemption for cases in which the mother’s life is endangered. This sounds very empathetic, until you realize it isn’t true. Multiple obstetricians and gynecologists, testifying before the Senate last year, made clear that the procedure is never necessary –under any circumstances — to save a mother’s life; and the administration’s own star witness in the first partial-birth hearings later recanted, admitting that his assertions on the topic had been “lies.”

The truth is simpler: Planned Parenthood is the only lobby to whom Bill Clinton has been consistently faithful. And the people who truly love abortion — Rush Limbaugh’s much talked-about “feminazis”, who have stood by Clinton through Paula, Kathleen, Monica and a dozen others — stand by partial birth to their last gasp. Their reasoning is simple too: if partial birth abortions can be banned, who knows where it might end? Having lead conservatives down a thousand slippery slopes over the years, they know one when they see it.

It is a joke to think that there can be rights (plural) when the ultimate right — life — is denied. It is an authoritarian world these pro-death extremists give us, one in which anything goes, except what is inconvenient for them. A child may divorce her parents if her parents hold traditional values, but the same child may be killed if her boomer parent’s career gets in the way. A child’s self-esteem must supercede his education, but that same child, if a discipline problem, must instantly be drugged with Ritalin. A parent may be useful for all sorts of purposes, but let him get a little old or sick, and see how fast we warehouse him in a “nursing” home.

And, increasingly, see how fast we kill him — humanely, of course — just like the equally vulnerable infant in the womb.

But that broader debate on abortion will wait for another day. Today, the Senate must again vote to ban the particular evil of partial-birth abortion, and must summon the courage to do so by a veto-proof margin. And today, your help is required. Call your Senator at (202) 224-3121. Send a message loud and clear that a civilized people will not tolerate barbarism. The lives of thousands of innocents hang on their vote and your call.