EDITORIALS; Getting It Done.

As our faithful readers know, last November the ink had barely dried on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act when pro-abortionists secured injunctions in federal courts in San Francisco, New York City, and Lincoln, Nebraska. What many pro-lifers perhaps do not know is that as NRL News goes to press, the Justice Department is going toe to toe with the plaintiffs, vigorously defending a measure that has overwhelming support in Congress and among the general public. Planned Parenthood, individual abortionists, and trade associations such as the National Abortion Federation (NAF) insist the law is unconstitutional because the measure does not have a "health" exception. But this was no oversight. After exhaustive hearings, Congress concluded that no health exception was necessary because the procedure is never medically necessary to preserve the health of a woman. I have read a fair amount of the legal back and forth and it appears the pro-abortionists may have ensnared themselves in a trap of their own making.

Let's reason this out. If you were the Justice Department and plaintiffs tell the courts that partial-birth abortions are "medically necessary" for women with various "serious medical complications" or because they are "carrying a fetus with a severe anomaly," how could/would you respond?

Put a different way, if the abortionists are maintaining that the lack of a health exception "affirmatively endangers pregnant women," what would you need to determine whether this is true? The medical records, of course, with all sensitive patient information - - for instance, "Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers or other identifying information" - - removed so as to guard confidentiality.

In a spirited February 5 exchange, Assistant United States Attorney Sheila M. Gowan told U.S. District Judge Richard Casey that the Justice Department needed access to the medical records to determine whether the abortionists had actually performed the procedure, and "whether there was something about the maternal health that required the performance of that procedure, or was it just the doctor's preference to perform the procedure."

As it turned out, this hearing did not go well for the plaintiffs. Bear in mind that last November this same Judge Casey temporarily blocked the government from enforcing the ban. But his patience with the pro-abortionists' dilly-dallying was clearly wearing thin.

Talcott Camp, representing NAF, tried to shift the blame to the hospitals for the delays. Judge Casey was not buying it.

A clearly exasperated Casey said,"[Y]ou have brought the lawsuit. They [the plaintiffs] are going to do whatever it takes to produce hospital records. I will not - - hear me out loud and clear - - I will not let the doctors hide behind the shield of the hospital. Is that clear? I am fed up with stalls and delays." He added, "They didn't have to be plaintiffs. They chose to be, and now they are going to get it done."