'Partial Birth Abortion' Is Really A Political Marketing Term

The Nation -- In the Waiting Room -- Belinda, Miranda, Evelynne and Karina are the human face of the current Congressional debate over "partial-birth abortion," a term invented by anti-choicers that has no precise medical meaning and cannot be found in any medical text.

When is "late term"? Well, it's when you have a "partial-birth abortion." It is, in other words, a foggy expression that intentionally conflates the second trimester of pregnancy, when according to Roe v. Wade, abortion can be regulated before viability only to safeguard the woman's health, and the third trimester, when abortion can legally be banned except to preserve the woman's life or health.

Going after "partial-birth abortion" is a brilliant tactic. The phrase doesn't insult the pregnant woman the way "convenience abortion," "abortion as birth control" and "abortion as murder" do, implying that women get pregnant out of laziness and kill on a whim; and a ban appears to affect only the kind of abortion a woman can have, not whether she gets to have one at all. But the smoke and mirrors of "partial-birth abortion" language may be used to limit many common abortion procedures.

On March 13, the Senate passed a ban on "partial-birth abortion," which, since it avoids any reference to gestational age, constitutes a flagrant attack on Roe.

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