Go to the archive. An Akron doctor testified yesterday that a late-term abortion procedure the state is trying to ban is safer than other techniques because it is faster, reducing the length of time a woman is under anesthesia. Dr. Rein Siiner, who has been performing the procedure since 1985, said that because a ventilator is required during anesthesia, there is a risk that a patient will not get enough oxygen. The quicker abortion procedure also keeps blood loss to a minimum, he told U.S. District Judge Walter Rice. Rice is hearing a challenge to a second state ban against the procedure, which involves draining and collapsing the skull of a fetus before it is fully removed from the uterus.
Opponents call it partial-birth abortion.
Dr. Martin Haskell, who operates clinics in Cincinnati, Dayton and Akron, argued that the ban is unconstitutional because it would restrict a woman's right to an abortion. It is Ohio's second attempt to ban the procedure. Rice in 1995 rejected the first late-term abortion law as unconstitutional. The state says the new law was changed to avoid criticisms from federal courts that similar bans were too vague. For example, the new law describes only the partial-birth procedure and makes it clear that it does not attempt to ban other forms of abortions, state officials say.