An Ohio doctor who pioneered a late-term abortion method is at the center of a national controversy over the procedure. Yet even those who provide abortions in the state say they wouldn't recognize him on the street. Dr. Martin Haskell, who runs women's health clinics in Cincinnati, Akron and the Dayton suburb of Kettering, first publicized the procedure, known medically as dilation and extraction, at a 1992 National Abortion Federation conference. D and E, as it has become known, can be used as early as four months into a pregnancy but is often used later on. A doctor drains the skull of a fetus before it is fully delivered.
Opponents refer to the procedure as partial-birth abortion.
A lawsuit filed by Dr. Haskell resulted in U.S. District Judge Walter Rice overturning Ohio's first law banning the late-term abortion procedure in 1995. He is also suing to have the state's latest ban struck down. Judge Rice issued an injunction on Sept. 22 preventing the law from taking effect until a trial or action by an appeals court. Abortion-rights activists and providers say he keeps a low profile. He's a doctor.