'Partial-Birth' Abortion Bans Only Increase Risks Among Women Whose Lives Might Be In Danger, Letter To Editor Says

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Pregnancy / Obstetrics
Article Date: 07 Apr 2008 - 10:00 PDT

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Banning so-called "partial-birth" abortion, which is the "political term for intact dilation and evacuation," does "nothing to prevent late-stage abortion," Karen Frantz -- policy and advocacy associate of the American Humanist Association -- writes in a Washington Post letter to the editor in response to a Post opinion piece by columnist Michael Gerson about Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama's (Ill.) abortion-rights position.

According to Frantz, the "ostensibly pro-life" Gerson is "startlingly cavalier about the lives of women when he attacks anyone" who opposes partial-birth abortion bans. A "large number of partial-birth abortions are performed" when pregnant women's "lives are in danger or when severe developmental problems have been detected in the fetuses," Frantz writes. She concludes that banning intact dilation and evacuation "merely leaves non-intact dilation and extraction methods as the sole resort of women whose lives may be in danger -- methods that many doctors deem riskier and more likely to cause infertility" (Frantz, Washington Post, 4/4).

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