I had a feeling you were going to post that; Slate seems to be "flooding the zone" with pro-partial birth abortion articles, it seems.
The reason no articles or whatever have been published using "partial birth" and/or Intact D&E is because those are ambiguous terms thrown around by both sides. Partial birth is a realistic way of describing it, but pro-life advocates always seem to want to push partial birth from what it really is (as the baby is being delivered) to what it is not (late term abortions from the 20th to 22nd week onward). This is counterproductive, because the techniques used to accomplish both are different, though in my mind, both barbaric.
However, pro-life advocates want to jump on the public revulsion to partial birth and encompass all abortion. Clearly there are multiple battles to fight; pro-lifers want to use the boost from the ban on partial birth to accomplish everything in one fell swoop. Hence the confusion regarding what is partial birth and what is not, a fault of pro-lifers.
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Originally posted by filtherton
I have a hard time believing any doctor would perform such a procedure as a woman is giving birth. Maybe it does, but do you have any proof that such a thing actually happens?
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Here is a procedure as described by the Los Angeles Times (in light of recent events, clearly not a conservative newspaper), originally quoted in the Rocky Mountain News :
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"[Partial birth abortion] requires a physician to extract a fetus, feet first, from the womb and through the birth canal until all but its head is exposed. Then the tips of surgical scissors are thrust into the base of the fetus' skull, and a suction catheter is inserted through the opening and the brain is removed."
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And the numbers, as reported in the Rocky Mountain News :
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Yet the National Coalition of Abortion Providers back in 1997 estimated that the method was used 3,000 to 5,000 times annually; while a recent Alan Guttmacher Institute survey indicates the number is steadily increasing.
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And finally, the actual text of the bill, as reported by the Boston Globe :
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The bill defines partial birth abortion as delivery of a fetus ''until, in the case of a headfirst presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of the breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus.''
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We can see that the latter provision was aimed directly at the procedure defined by the Los Angeles Times, and the first at crushing the skull of the baby.
-- Alvin
EDIT: The LA Times procedure was originally quoted in the Rocky Mountain News (October 25, 2003). I edited my post to reflect that.