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The U.S. Bishops' Pro-Life Secretariat has posted, on its
Website (www.usccb.org), excerpts taken from recent action
in the New York Partial Birth Abortion trial.
President George W. Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion
Ban into law on November 5, 2003, but currently the constitutionality
of this law is being challenged in three federal district
courts --- New York, Nebraska and California. Testimony from
abortion doctors on the witness stand is full of admissions
about the brutality of this abortion method. This unadorned,
graphic testimony confirms why the vast majority of Americans
sought to ban this procedure.
(For extended excerpts from all trials, as well as full
transcripts, visit http://www.nccbuscc.org/prolife/issues/pba/pbaban.htm.
Please note the transcription may contain transcription errors.
Be advised as well of the graphic nature of parts of the text.)
Organizers
say the federal ban on partial-birth abortion is a central
reason for the April 25 demonstration. As this testimony
shows, it is for a very real, very cruel, and very painful
way of killing nearly viable and even post-viable unborn
children.
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The testimony provides a telling backdrop for the abortion
activist rally scheduled for April 25 in Washington, D.C.
Organizers say the federal ban on partial-birth abortion is
a central reason for the demonstration. Thus, their demonstration
is not for some abstract notion of "choice," but, as the following
testimony shows, it is for a very real, very cruel, and very
painful way of killing nearly viable and even post-viable
unborn children.
The transcript that follows is from Friday, April 2, Day
4 of the case, National Abortion Federation, et. al. v. Ashcroft,
in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, Judge
Richard Conway Casey presiding. The testimony is that of Dr.
Carolyn Westhoff, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, an ob-gyn
and attending physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital,
and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University
School of Medicine.
THE COURT: I want to know whether that woman knows that
you are going to take a pair of scissors and insert them into
the base of the skull of her baby, of her fetus. Do you tell
her?
THE WITNESS: I do not usually tell patients specific details
of the operative approach. I'm completely ---
THE COURT: Do you tell her that you are going to then, ultimately,
suck the brain out of the skull?
THE WITNESS: In all of our D&Es the head is collapsed or
crushed and the brains are definitely out of the skull but
those are ---
THE COURT: Do you tell them that?
THE WITNESS: Those are details that would be distressing
to my patients and would not --- information about that is
not directly relevant to their safety.
THE COURT: Don't --- whether it's relative to their safety
or not, don't you think it's since they're giving authorization
to you to do this act that they should know precisely what
you're going to do?
THE WITNESS: That's actually not the practice I have of
discussing surgical cases with patients.
THE COURT: I didn't ask you that. I said don't you think
they ought to know?
THE WITNESS: No, sir, I don't.
---
Q. Do you tell a woman who is considering a D&E that the
fetal arms, legs, extremities may be dismembered is in the
course of a dismemberment variation D&E, Dr. Westhoff?
A. I tell patients that we will remove all of the fetus
and the uterus and membrane, the placenta and membranes from
the uterus as safely as possible, and that that proceeds somewhat
differently for all patients.
---
Q. How often will it be necessary to collapse the fetal
skull during D&E whether the D&E proceeds by a dismemberment
or more relatively intact, Doctor?
A. For the vast majority of D&Es [it will] be necessary
[to] either crush or collapse the fetal skull.
THE COURT: Do you tell the woman that? Do you use the word
crush?
THE WITNESS: Your Honor, I do not.
THE COURT: I didn't think so.
---
Q. Is there a difference, Dr. Westhoff, between the way
a head, fetal head may be collapsed in a D&E by dismemberment
and the way it may be collapsed during a D&E performed by
the intact [method]?
 A.
Yes. The approaches are different. In the dismemberment D&E
the fetal head will be up inside the uterus. It is necessary
to insert our forceps, open them as wide as possible to try
to capture the head within the opening of the forceps and
then crush the head using external force applied against the
head.…
With an intact D&E, when we have put a hole into the base
of the skull we can generally do that under direct visualization
because the base of the skull is, thanks to traction, held
right in the cervical opening and so it is, in my experience
and my opinion, less risky to put a hole in the base of the
skull. Because the contents of the skull are liquid, the skull
contents may often drain out spontaneously as soon as there
is a hole in the skull. In some cases it is necessary to use
[suctioning].…
Cathy Cleaver Ruse, Esq., is director of planning and
information with the USCCB Pro-Life Secretariat. Transcript
excerpts are also available on the USCCB Website from Planned
Parenthood v. Ashcroft (U.S. District Court, Northern District
of California, late March-early April), and Leroy Carhart,
M.D., et al v. Ashcroft (U.S. District Court, District of
Nebraska, late March-early April).
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