The Supreme Court's decision to consider the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act has once again pushed the abortion issue into the spotlight.The law, which was signed by President Bush in 2003 after an eight-year-long congressional fight, prohibits doctors from knowingly performing a "partial-birth abortion," a procedure it defines as one in which the person performing the abortion "deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother."But "partial-birth" is not a medical term. It's a political one, and a highly confusing one at that, with both sides disagreeing even on how many procedures take place, at what point in pregnancy, and exactly which procedures the law actually bans.So to better understand the facts behind the controversy,...
