PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION AND POLITICAL CONVICTION

The decade-long debate that led to the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 tested the moral and political convictions of U.S. legislators in Washington, of U.S. Presidents (in both political parties), and of the public at large.

Opinion polls repeatedly showed that over two-thirds (68% to 70%) of American adults were appalled by partial birth abortion and were in favor of a federal ban on the D&X PBA procedure except in a rare case where it might be necessary to save the life of the mother.  

In spite of multiple Partial Birth Abortion Ban bills passing in both houses (Congress and Senate) in the 1990s, by significant majorities, they were vetoed by then-President Clinton each time.  The Senate was unable to reach the necessary two-thirds override votes.

It took the election of President G. W. Bush to get the eventual Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 signed into law – without an exception for so-called ‘health consideration’ of the mother, but with an exception to save the ‘life’ of the mother.  The 2003 PBA Ban Act was subsequently upheld, as is, by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Legislative voting on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (and prior votes on all earlier-proposed PBA Ban bills) proved to be the ultimate litmus test as to how U.S. senators and congressmen personally felt about and politically judged the morality of termination, by abortion, of post-21-weeks’ gestation infants.  It was legislatively acknowledged, and testified-to by medical experts, that such D&X partial birth abortions – about 3,000 a year – were never medically necessary.  

Religious preference of the lawmakers – those elected representatives of their constituents – seemed to make scant difference to their votes.  Forty (40) Catholic congressmen and women voted against the Ban on Partial Birth Abortion (even though the final vote in the House of Representatives was overwhelmingly in favor of the Ban by 281 to 142).  In the U.S. Senate, ten (10) Catholic senators voted against the PBA Ban – where once again the final Senate vote was 64 to 33 in favor of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.

The Jewish vote was similar to Catholic legislators’ votes, probably even more pronounced toward support for continuation of late-term D&X Partial Birth Abortion.  Of the 26 Jewish congressmen voting, only 1 voted in favor of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.  In the U.S. Senate, only 2 of 11 Jewish senators supported the overwhelmingly-passed Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.

Political affiliation DID, however, have a recognizable impact on the way those U.S. legislators voted in the 1990s and up through early 2003.  Returning to the important Catholic vote, of the 50 Catholic U.S. legislators (in House and Senate) who voted against the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, 49 were Democrats!

And geographic location seems also to have had an impact on U.S. legislators’ votes.  Of the 50 Catholic U.S. legislators who opposed passing the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, 13 Catholics were from the abortion capital of the world, California.  In fact, of the total Nays (all votes against the PBA Ban Act 2003) 32 were from California.

In fact, of the combined 175 Senate and House Nay votes opposing the PBA Ban Act of 2003 (versus 359 Yea votes) some 78 Nay votes were from just 6 states:  California, Florida, Texas, and the eastern seaboard pro-abortion bloc comprising New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.  76 of the 78 Nay-voters from these 6 states were Democrats.

It seems very clear that, whatever the key underlying reason for those Senators and Representatives who voted against the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003,  those that did so are – by an extraordinarily large  percentage – members of the Democratic Party.  Of the U.S. Senators voting Nay, 30 of the 33 were Democrats.  Of the U.S. Representatives voting Nay, of the 142 voters a total of 137 were Democrats.

Why is that?  The question is asked in several books and countless articles, and never fully answered.  Norman Podhoretz’s book “Why Are Jews Liberals?” is riveting but does not zero in on abortion as a major issue for Jews, except superficially.  David Carlin wrote a book entitled “Can A Catholic Be A Democrat?”; the answer is obviously yes…but why?  Is it due to their Irish or other ethnic heritage, or their concern for the poor – or is it because they are simply in favor of abortion, even late-term abortion, for any reason at any time (like D&X Partial Birth Abortion and D&E Late-Term Dismemberment Abortion)?  Even if it means going against the fundamental tenets of their Catholic faith?  Another author, Michael Winters, wrote a book, “Left At The Altar”, which speculates that Catholics may help to change the Democratic Party – but convincingly?

A more thorough analysis is presented in Ramesh Ponnuru’s brutally-titled “The Party Of Death” (subtitled “The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life”).  The author points out that in decades past, the Democratic Party was more inclusive and took a more nuanced view of abortion, with prominent leaders such as Hubert Humphrey and Edmund Muskie being openly pro-life.  ”Somehow,” he writes, “the Democratic Party changed from being the ‘party of the little guy’ to turning its back on the littlest guy of all.”

However, pro-abortion advocates that go beyond the pale and advocate late-term second-trimester abortion – of what are now known to be potentially viable infants at post-21 weeks’ gestation – by either method of D&X Partial Birth Abortion or D&E Dismemberment Abortion are by no means restricted to above-referenced Catholic and Jewish sectors.  Women legislators who voted Nay on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 outnumbered Yea female voters by a ratio of 3-to-2.

It has been so long now since the debates on Partial Birth Abortion that the American public seems to have forgotten how frightful that procedure was, and forgotten how adamant they were that late-term D&X abortions by that Partial Birth Abortion method should be banned.  What the public never realized, in or before 2003, was that there was – and is – another equally gruesome method of late-term abortion – perpetrated on precisely the same gestation age and same potentially-viable infants – known as “the classic late-term abortion method” comprising D&E (dilation and evacuation) Dismemberment Abortion.

D&E Dismemberment Abortion was performed on more than 17,000 viable and potentially-viable infants annually prior to 2003.  D&X Partial Birth Abortion was performed at that time on about 3000 viable and potentially-viable infants annually in the two decades preceding 2003.  Immediately the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 became effective as law, those 3000 annual D&X abortions reverted to being D&E Dismemberment Abortions.  Since 2003, the number of late-term D&E Dismemberment Abortions of potentially-viable infants has exceeded 20,000 per year.

The D&X Partial Birth Abortion Ban did not save one single viable infant’s life.

The eventual Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 and the long, long debate leading to its passage, was to reveal to the American public the horror of that procedure, and most importantly, to reveal clearly how the political views and positions of U.S. elected legislators stood in relation to late-term abortion of viable infants, abortions at any time in the gestation cycle, for any reason.

It is nearly a decade later on.  Late-term D&E Dismemberment Abortion of potentially-viable infants continues apace, at the rate of nearly a quarter of a million such infants a decade, by a medical abortion procedure – of dismembering living children in the womb – that is even more gruesome and primitive than the partial birth abortion method ever was.

It is past time to once again gauge the political positions and moral views of the current cadre of U.S. congressmen and senators in regard to a potential Ban on D&E late-term Dismemberment Abortion (with the same exception as in the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, i.e. taking into consideration the life of the mother) and the means for doing so is to put forward a Bill in the House of Representatives and begin anew the long debate.  

A draft Bill has been published on this blog website, modeled precisely on the wording and rationale of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 – refer to the April 26, 2011 post on this site, and to other earlier posts on the same subject.

The election season is upon America again and everything, understandably, is about the jobs crisis, the budget crisis, the potential double-dip recession looming crisis, the European crisis, the housing crisis, and above all the lack of governance leadership crisis.  No one, but no one, wants to talk about late-term abortion in America, or what it may be doing to potentially erode our nation’s moral fiber.  No one wants to know the real numbers.  No one believes the facts, that over 20,000 truly viable and potentially-viable infants are killed each year by stripping their limbs and heads from their torsos, in-utero, and evacuating the destroyed fetal parts by suction.

This crisis of late-term D&E Dismemberment Abortion in America has to be talked about head-on, has to be debated, analyzed, brought out in the open.  It will be banned, eventually; one would hope much sooner than in a decade hence.  If we Americans defer the dialogue of this core moral issue now, we may not easily solve the crises involving the other issues that are confounding our lives at this time.

We can not count on this current President ever signing into law a similar D&E Ban Act as the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, a new Act comprising a Ban on D&E Dismemberment Abortion.  President Obama would veto such a Bill just as President Clinton did over a decade ago.  But the composition of congressmen and women and U.S. senators may continue to change…maybe even previously-pro-late-term abortion positions of many Catholic and Jewish and women lawmakers in the U.S. Congress and Senate may change.  Indeed, perhaps a majority of Democrats may change their minds about this pivotal issue.  Late-Term D&E Abortion should not be seen as a core Democratic Party political tenet.

Juan O’Callahan  29 September, 2011