The bill includes an exception for partial birth abortions performed to save a mother's life and has a penalty of life imprisonment for a doctor who violates the ban. A partial birth abortion is conducted by turning an unborn child in the breech position and delivering all but the child's head. The abortionist then stabs the baby in the back of the neck and suctions out the child's brains and then delivers the corpse. It is estimated that there are about half a dozen partial birth abortions in Wisconsin every year. However, the number could be much higher since there is no official recordkeeping of the abortion method used in the nearly 13,000 abortions performed in Wisconsin every year.
All abortions are immoral.
Assembly Bill 220 is not perfect. But the language of the bill makes it clear that a doctor who claims that a partial birth abortion was necessary to save a mother's life will have to show that no other medical procedure would suffice for that purpose. She said Pope John Paul II counseled in his encyclical, The Gospel of Life that elected officials can licitly support laws aimed at incremental change in abortion policy when it is not possible to completely abrogate the pro-abortion law. The WCC took no position on the penalty provisions of the bill but noted that the National Conference of Catholic Bishops supported the federal partial birth abortion ban, which carried a penalty of a fine, two years imprisonment or both and allowed for civil damages. The WCC also called on all pro-life advocates and legislators to recognize that it is not enough to remove unjust laws.