Friday, June 26, 2009
Editorial: The doctor's intent matters
Top court should overturn Virginia's partial-birth abortion law
From the RoundTable blog
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On Wednesday, a federal appeals court ruled that Virginia may prohibit doctors from performing the "intact dilation and extraction" procedure. It's better known as "partial-birth abortion" or even "partial-birth infanticide" if you're a hyperbole-inclined lawmaker, attorney general or Republican gubernatorial candidate.
Lawmakers won't likely repeal this foolish law, so we hope opponents appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court strikes it down.
The law allows second trimester dilation and extraction procedures, but not if the fetus comes out most of the way intact.
The only exception is to protect the life of the patient. Not the health, mind you. Even the Supreme Court isn't worried about that.
Sometimes doctors don't intend to perform an intact extraction, but it happens accidentally. Medical procedures do not always go as planned.
That's just too bad, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in its 6-5 decision. The majority figured that those accidents occur so infrequently they don't matter.
The court might as well have outlawed second-trimester abortions. Few, if any, doctors would risk the legal procedure when, through no fault of their own, it might turn into an illegal one.
In 2007, the Supreme Court upheld a similar federal law in part because it does not apply to the accidents. Doctors must intend to perform a partial-birth abortion to run afoul of that law. It should be the same in Virginia.
