[ OUR OPINION ]
Senate threatens women’s
health during pregnancyWOMEN whose health is threatened during birth have been dealt a potentially serious blow. The U.S. Senate has approved an extreme version of a bill that would ban a medical procedure that critics call "partial-birth" abortion to preserve the woman's health. It is expected to be enacted by the House and signed into law by President Bush, so it will be up to the U.S. Supreme Court to restore the constitutional right of women to make their own childbearing decisions.
THE ISSUE The U.S. Senate has approved a bill that would criminalize an abortion procedure that critics call "partial-birth" abortion.Ninety percent of abortions occur during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The Supreme Court has ruled that they can be banned only after the 23rd week, during the third trimester. The bill, approved by a 64-33 vote, would criminalize a procedure known in medical circles as dilation and evacuation, the safer and more common of two abortion methods used during the second trimester.
Before the procedure was developed, doctors commonly would induce labor in the woman in health-threatening pregnancies, a lengthy, painful and risky method of protecting the woman's health. Today, doctors dilate the woman's cervix so they can remove the fetus and cut the umbilical cord. If the cervix is open, the fetus can be removed intact with little risk. If the cervix is small, fetal parts can be taken out separately, which takes longer and results in greater loss of blood. The Senate bill would criminalize the first procedure while allowing the "dismemberment" method.
Many of the second-trimester abortions are performed because of serious birth defects and other problems. The bill's vague wording essentially would strip physicians of their ethical obligation to give the highest priority to the patient's safety.
Senators rejected, by a vote of 60 to 38, a compromise amendment cosponsored by Senator Akaka and supported by Senator Inouye that would have allowed dilation and evacuation in cases where two physicians certified that a continued pregnancy would pose a "grievous" threat to the woman's health. Both of Hawaii's senators voted against passage of the final bill.
The Supreme Court struck down a Nebraska law similar to the Senate bill three years ago as unconstitutional, finding that a state "may not endanger a woman's health when it regulates the methods of abortion." Authors of the current legislation injected specious language declaring that the procedure is never warranted. That judgment should be made by physicians, not politicians.
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Published by Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press.Don Kendall, Publisher
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Lucy Young-Oda, Assistant Editor 529-4762; lyoungoda@starbulletin.comMary Poole, Editorial Page Editor, 529-4748; mpoole@starbulletin.com
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