An affirmative defense will be provided if the physician reasonably believes a partial-birth abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother and no other procedure will suffice for that purpose. Their decisions are often very complicated, representing a systematic strategy developed from multiple decisional building blocks. Medical decisionmaking is not simple and is not the type of decisionmaking which Congress has any business exercising. Every case is unique.
Every human body is different.
For Congress to pass a blanket prohibition of a medical procedure will be doubly disastrous, because Congress is incompetent to make medical judgments and because demanding a uniform practice in medicine when each case is unique is by definition dangerous. Congress has never before banned a medical procedure. Instead, it has relied on the medical community to police itself, which it has done with advisory guidelines. These guidelines have resulted in quality medical care. Doctors have used these guidelines to make decisions based on medical need rather than politics.