One small step for babykind.(The Last Word)

It is natural for anyone who has labored tirelessly for years in the pro-life movement to feel a sense of satisfaction that Congress has finally shown an ounce of common sense, a pennyweight of compassion, and a gram of courage. The weary soldier welcomes any victory, however small.

We are referring, of course, to the long-awaited 64-34 vote in the Senate to pass the "Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003." The Senate vote on October 21 followed the 282-142 House vote three weeks earlier. Following the Senate victory, President Bush agreed to sign the legislation, keeping a campaign promise to pro-lifers--an important constituency without whose support he most certainly would not have been elected.

While those of us who are committed to defending the sanctity of life can honestly regard the partial-birth abortion ban as a step in the right direction, complete victory against abortion remains elusive. Depending on the source of your statistics, approximately 1.3 million abortions are performed each year in the United States. Of these, estimates on the number of partial-birth abortions range from 2,000-5,000. Using the higher figures, the ban will, at least in theory, prevent less than four-tenths of one percent of all abortions.

Every human life is worth saving, and saving even a single life is a worthwhile achievement. But, tragically, the language of the legislation condemns, not the crime of abortion, but a particular means (partial-birth abortion) for carrying out that murderous act. In so doing, the legislation actually implies that other means to the same deadly end are permissible. Instead of stopping the killing, the legislation may, in many if not most cases, only change the method of execution.

For example, among the congressional findings stated in the bill was the language: "Rather than being an abortion procedure that is embraced by the medical community, particularly among physicians who routinely perform other abortion procedures, partial-birth abortion remains a disfavored procedure...." This language suggests that other abortion procedures are favored by the medical community. The legislation does nothing to discourage these other, supposedly more favored, abortion procedures.

Another section of the legislation reads: "[A] prominent medical association has recognized that partial birth abortions are 'ethically different from other destructive abortion techniques because the fetus, normally twenty weeks or longer in gestation is killed outside the womb.'" Partial-birth abortion is a form of infanticide. But is killing the 20-week-old infant outside the womb ethically different from killing that same 20-week-old infant ...