Infants are being killed.

[Editor's note. This op-ed first appeared in USA Today.]

A few weeks ago, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America said in a press release that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act would "outlaw a medical procedure used primarily in emergency abortions."

It knows better. Here's the truth:

Thousands of times a year, an abortionist deliberately delivers, feet first, a premature, healthy infant until only the baby's head remains lodged just inside the mother's womb. Then he punctures the base of the baby's skull with 7-inch surgical scissors and suctions out the brain.

"Premature infant" is accurate. The method is usually used in the fifth and sixth months (sometimes later). Babies born just after the start of the sixth month now very often survive. Even during the fifth month, if a woman goes into spontaneous labor, her baby usually will be alive when born and, therefore, legally recognized as a "live birth." Thus, this abortion method is, literally, a partial birth.

Eminent medical authorities have testified that this process must be excruciatingly painful for the baby who is subjected to it.

In Senate floor debate, Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said that a ...