Chipping Away at 'Roe'

Congress has once again passed a bill banning "partial-birth abortion." It's not the first time. President Clinton vetoed similar bans in 1996 and 1997. In 2000 the Supreme Court struck down a similar law passed in Nebraska, in Stenberg v. Carhart. Now, however, antiabortion forces have struck paydirt--because this President will sign it.

Many see passage of the bill as a minor defeat, prohibiting the use of a single procedure that many view as troubling. In fact, it marks at least a temporary win in a right-wing disinformation strategy. Just as the WMD mantra was used to short-circuit debate over the "pre-emptive" war, so too has "partial-birth abortion" been used to divert attention from an eight-year campaign to render Roe hollow.

The term "partial-birth abortion" is invented and nonsensical, with no medical meaning. Rather than banning only abortions performed late in pregnancy using one specific method--dilation and extraction--as proponents claim, the bill, because its language is so broad, would outlaw many abortion procedures performed throughout the second trimester, long before fetal viability.

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.