Ken Brown (May 2 letter) criticizes the Partial Birth Abortion Ban of 2003 because it prevents women from choosing their own best treatment in consultation with their physicians. The bill should also be criticized for its appalling cynicism and hypocrisy.
It imposes both criminal and civil penalties on the physician while specifically exempting the woman from prosecution as a co-conspirator. No physician snatches women off the street to perform abortions on them. Women choose out-patient partial birth abortions to avoid C-sections and hospitalization. The physician merely performs the procedure chosen by the woman.
If legislators really believe that this procedure should be illegal, why do they specifically immunize women against prosecution? To drive a wedge between doctor and patient. If the woman were subject to prosecution, some pair ' physician and patient ' would test the case. Some decent mother of three kids, pregnant with a nonviable hydrocephalic fetus, would choose an outpatient procedure instead of major surgery, and the nation would see her interviewed in prison for making that choice.
Anti-abortion activists and legislators are too savvy and cynical ever to allow such a scene. Shame on them for claiming the moral high ground.
Steve Hays is an associate professor of Classics and World Religions.
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Letter to the Editor
