 What Assembly blessed, U.S. Senate bans, 64-33 By John H. Adams The Layman Online Thursday, March 13, 2003 What the Presbyterian Church (USA) has blessed, the U.S. Senate has overwhelmingly voted to ban. The Senate voted 64-33 today to prohibit partial-birth abortions, which allows doctors to kill viable babies through a gruesome procedure just as they are being delivered.
The congressional measure now goes to the GOP-controlled House, where passage is expected this spring. President Bush has said he will sign the measure. While the Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has lobbied aggressively for unrestricted abortion rights for women, the vote in the Senate seemed to reflect few results. Of the 13 U.S. Senators who are Presbyterians, 11 voted in favor of the ban. Many observers expected that the Senate would be the firewall against prohibiting partial-birth abortions – even up to shortly before today's vote. "The lopsided roll call was a marked contrast to three days of emotionally-charged debate in which supporters of the bill attacked the controversial procedure as barbaric and opponents said the measure was the opening salvo of a larger assault on abortion rights," the Associated Press reported. One of the leading proponents of the ban was Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., a Presbyterian elder who is the Senate's majority leader.
He described the procedure: "It begins by turning the living fetus around, partially pulling it out of the uterus feet first, and then thrusting the base of its skull deeply with 8-inch long scissors. Next the scissors are forcibly opened in the skull of the fetus to create a hole large enough to evacuate the brain and the contents of the head. Once the skull is collapsed, the now dead infant is pulled from the uterus through the birth canal. This procedure is most commonly performed in the second trimester of pregnancy, from 20 to 27 weeks." Without presenting any medical testimony, the advocates of partial-birth abortion told the commissioners to the 214th General Assembly that the procedure was sometimes necessary to save the life of the mother. Two doctors who favored the ban on partial-birth abortion disputed that argument, just as did Frist in his remarks on the Senate floor. "Some say partial-birth abortion may be necessary to preserve the health of the mother," Frist said. "That's just not true. Never has partial-birth abortion been the only procedure or the best procedure available in case of a medical emergency. It is time-consuming; it takes three days. And it is dangerous. The only advantage of partial-birth abortion – which is a disturbing advantage – is the guarantee of a dead infant." The mother's endangerment claim was repeated on the Senate floor by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. "This bill is unconstitutional," argued Boxer, saying it lacked an exemption in cases where the health of the mother is in jeopardy. Like the Presbyterian advocates for partial-birth abortion at the 214th General Assembly, Boxer is not a doctor. Some of the principals in the partial-birth abortion debate at the 214th General Assembly are involved in the upcoming trial before the highest court in the denomination. The trial is to determine whether Moderator Fahed Abu-Akel and Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick violated the PCUSA Constitution in rejecting a petition that required the moderator to call the assembly back into session to consider constitutional defiance issues. Alex F. Metherell, a Laguna Beach, Calif., physician-engineer who was a commissioner to the 214th General Assembly, initiated the petition campaign and has argued that the moderator and clerk acted unconstitutionally. Metherell was one of the two physicians who told commissioners that partial-birth abortion is never a procedure for protecting the life of a mother. On the other side of the called-meeting issue is Baltimore lawyer Judy Woods, who is defending the actions of the moderator and the stated clerk in their rejection of Metherell's petition. Woods, as a member of the denomination's Litigation Advisory Committee, was one of the denomination's resource people for proponents of partial-birth abortion. The Presbyterian Lay Committee was among the independent evangelical ministries in the PCUSA opposing partial-birth abortion. In a statement published in The Layman in February, Peggy Hedden, chairman of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, called the denomination's approval of partial-birth abortion "a catastrophic moral failure … We strongly condemn our denomination's failure to cherish and protect the lives of infants." |
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