The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was a bill introduced in the

Congress of the United States The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both ...

in 1995 by

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

Representative Charles T. Canady which prohibited intact dilation and extraction, sometimes referred to as ''partial-birth abortion'', which the bill described as "an abortion in which the person performing the abortion partially vaginally delivers a living fetus before killing the fetus and completing the delivery". In other words, the bill sought to eliminate abortion in the third trimester. The term "partial-birth abortion," coined by the Canady, has never been recognized by the

American Medical Association The American Medical Association (AMA) is an American professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. This medical association was founded in 1847 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was 271,660 ...

or the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. In November 1995, the House of Representatives passed the bill. Doctors convicted under the bill would receive a fine and up to a two-year prison sentence. The bill was passed by both chambers of Congress, but then

veto A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president (government title), president or monarch vetoes a bill (law), bill to stop it from becoming statutory law, law. In many countries, veto powe ...

ed by President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

. Opponents of the bill argued that D & X procedures only occurred in the case of severe fetal defects or when carrying the birth to term endangered the life of the mother; its advocates argued that the majority for purely elective reasons. These competing arguments both had some basis in truth but came from different classifications of D & X procedures; anti-Ban activists based their numbers solely on post-viability abortions, ignoring that pre-viability abortions account for more than 90 percent of D & X procedures. The use of the term "elective" by pro-Ban activists, on the other hand, completely overlooked the contextual factors such as youth, trauma, and poverty, that push women to choose D & X. The House overrode President Clinton's 1996 veto, but the Senate was several votes short of the required 2/3 requirement with a margin of 58 yeas to 40 nays. The Republican-controlled Congress tried to push a similar ban in January 1997 with House Resolution 1122, but again its efforts were defeated by President Clinton's veto. A similar bill was later passed in 2003 as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, signed into law by President

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...

References

United States proposed federal abortion legislation 104th United States Congress History of women's rights in the United States {{US-fed-statute-stub

See also

References