The Truth About Partial Birth Abortion

There are few more frightening political issues than the erroneously named “partial birth abortion.” On the surface, this sounds like a barbaric and inhumane procedure preformed for only the basest and most evil of reasons. Described by the Republican Congress as a procedure where a baby is delivered part of the way, then killed and extracted, sometimes in pieces, there’s no wonder that any decent human being would oppose such a thing.

The only problem is that this gruesome picture, like most stories designed to shock and scare, only retains a tiny fragment of the truth.

This procedure is properly called a D&E or dilation and extraction or a D&X, an “intact” D&E. It is this latter procedure that causes nightmares. It is extremely rare and seldom performed when a D&E is possible. In all cases, the procedure is performed in the second trimester of pregnancy before the baby is viable and only when the mother’s health is severely threatened or the fetus is severely deformed.

Although a D&E accounts for only 10 percent of abortions, the women we know who needed one had no other choice. In two cases, the fetus died in utero. You can only imagine how emotionally devastating this sort of thing can be. In both cases the mother went to the obstetrician’s office for a routine check-up and was told that there was no heart beat. The heartbreak of loosing a potential child was compounded by the fact that somehow the lost fetus needed to be extracted. When it came time to choose between hours of labor and its potential risks with no baby to hold at the end and a medical procedure they could sleep through, they chose the latter so as not to prolong the nightmare.

In another case, the mother learned that the child she carried was severely deformed and without most of its brain. Even if she carried this fetus to term, it would only survive a matter of hours and the deformities would cause an exceptionally difficult delivery. The woman and her husband chose a D&E instead, even though they found this choice so emotionally devastating it eventually ended their marriage.

This is the picture that is obscured when well-meaning but ignorant lawmakers climb upon their soapboxes to assure their constituency that they are indeed champions of the weak and defenseless. Sadly, suffering women are seldom included in those numbers.

Jewish teachings hold the life of the mother as paramount in these situations. Since this is the origin of our nation's Judeo-Christian tradition, can we at least hope that the Supreme Courst will consider this when deciding the case? Although we are missing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and her moderate and experienced views on the subject, perhaps this time the court will listen to unbiased and expert testimony that will shine a clearer light on this dark and frightening necessity.

Doing What Donkeys Do Best

"You’re the ones who made this bed. Now you’re the ones who are going to have to move over so a gay couple can sleep in it. Tomorrow you’re all going to wake up in a brave new world. A world where the constitution gets trampled by an army of terrorist clones created in a stem-cell research lab run by homosexual doctors who sterilize their instruments over burning flags. Where tax & spend Democrats take all your hard-earned money and use it to buy electric cars for National Public Radio and teach evolution to illegal immigrants. Oh – and everybody’s high!"
-- Stephen Colbert

Okay, we admit it. We’re a teeny bit high today. Not on drugs, but on the idea that the orderly transition of a government by the people, of the people, and for the people has not perished from this earth.

Oh, yeah, and we like the fact that the Democratic donkey did what donkeys do best: kicking.

We have to admit that as Democrats, we are not given to premature pronouncements or even the kind of self-empowered optimism found among members of other political parties. It wasn’t until the crawl along the bottom of our television screens started mounting up Democratic victories that we allowed ourselves to believe that what the pundits predicted would actually happen.

And even now, we fret a bit. Will Congress become even further to the right with the exit of moderate Republicans and the entrance of centrist Democrats? Can a Democrat capture the White House if there’s a Democratic majority in Congress? Will the Democrats really focus on doing what's good for the country, and not indulge in revenge politics?

One thing is certain – the brutality of the war in Iraq and the flagrant misbehavior by GOP office holders has worn the people down. And the Democrats have kicked the bums out.

Only time will tell if this is a good thing. But right now, riding on the wave of optimism that comes with the balance of powers in action, we look forward with the expectation that President Bush will finally live up to his 2000 campaign promise, that he is a uniter, not a divider.