serves the integrity of the medical profession,
and promotes respect for human life.
(H) Based upon Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S.
113 (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey,
505 U.S. 833 (1992), a governmental interest
in protecting the life of a child during the deliv-
ery process arises by virtue of the fact that dur-
ing a partial-birth abortion, labor is induced
and the birth process has begun. This distinc-
tion was recognized in Roe when the Court
noted, without comment, that the Texas partu-
rition statute, which prohibited one from killing
a child ‘‘in a state of being born and before ac-
tual birth,’’ was not under attack. This interest
becomes compelling as the child emerges from
the maternal body. A child that is completely
born is a full, legal person entitled to constitu-
tional protections afforded a ‘‘person’’ under
the United States Constitution. Partial-birth
abortions involve the killing of a child that is in
the process, in fact mere inches away from, be-
coming a ‘‘person’’. Thus, the government has
a heightened interest in protecting the life of
the partially-born child.
(I) This, too, has not gone unnoticed in
the medical community, where a prominent
medical association has recognized that partial-
birth abortions are ‘‘ethically different from
other destructive abortion techniques because
the fetus, normally twenty weeks or longer in
gestation, is killed outside of the womb’’. Ac-
cording to this medical association, the ‘‘ ‘par-
tial birth’ gives the fetus an autonomy which
separates it from the right of the woman to
choose treatments for her own body’’.
(J) Partial-birth abortion also confuses the
medical, legal, and ethical duties of physicians
to preserve and promote life, as the physician
acts directly against the physical life of a child,
whom he or she had just delivered, all but the
head, out of the womb, in order to end that life.
Partial-birth abortion thus appropriates the ter-
minology and techniques used by obstetricians
in the delivery of living children—obstetricians
who preserve and protect the life of the mother
and the child—and instead uses those tech-
niques to end the life of the partially-born child.
(K) Thus, by aborting a child in the man-
ner that purposefully seeks to kill the child
after he or she has begun the process of birth,
partial-birth abortion undermines the public’s
perception of the appropriate role of a physician
during the delivery process, and perverts a
process during which life is brought into the
world, in order to destroy a partially-born child.
(L) The gruesome and inhumane nature of
the partial-birth abortion procedure and its dis-
turbing similarity to the killing of a newborn in-
fant promotes a complete disregard for infant
human life that can only be countered by a pro-
hibition of the procedure.
(M) The vast majority of babies killed dur-
ing partial-birth abortions are alive until the
end of the procedure. It is a medical fact, how-
ever, that unborn infants at this stage can feel
pain when subjected to painful stimuli and that
their perception of this pain is even more in-
tense than that of newborn infants and older
children when subjected to the same stimuli.
Thus, during a partial-birth abortion procedure,
the child will fully experience the pain associ-
ated with piercing his or her skull and sucking
out his or her brain.
(N) Implicitly approving such a brutal and
inhumane procedure by choosing not to prohibit
it will further coarsen society to the humanity
of not only newborns, but all vulnerable and in-
nocent human life, making it increasingly dif-
ficult to protect such life. Thus, Congress has
a compelling interest in acting—indeed it must
act—to prohibit this inhumane procedure.
(O) For these reasons, Congress finds that
partial-birth abortion is never medically indi-
cated to preserve the health of the mother; is in
fact unrecognized as a valid abortion procedure
by the mainstream medical community; poses
additional health risks to the mother; blurs the
line between abortion and infanticide in the kill-
ing of a partially-born child just inches from
birth; and confuses the role of the physician in
childbirth and should, therefore, be banned.
SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTIONS.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Title 18, United States Code, is
amended by inserting after chapter 73 the following:
‘‘CHAPTER 74—PARTIAL-BIRTH
ABORTIONS
‘‘Sec.
‘‘1531. Partial-birth abortions prohibited.
‘‘§ 1531. Partial-birth abortions prohibited
‘‘(a) Any physician who, in or affecting interstate or
foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-birth
abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or
both. This subsection does not apply to a partial-birth
abortion that is necessary to save the life of a mother
whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical
illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering
physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy
itself. This subsection takes effect 1 day after the enact-
ment.
‘‘(b) As used in this section—
‘‘(1) the term ‘partial-birth abortion’ means an
abortion in which—
‘‘(A) 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 for
the purpose of performing an overt act that the
person knows will kill the partially delivered liv-
ing fetus; and
‘‘(B) performs the overt act, other than
completion of delivery, that kills the partially
delivered living fetus; and
‘‘(2) the term ‘physician’ means a doctor of medicine
or osteopathy legally authorized to practice medicine and
surgery by the State in which the doctor performs such
activity, or any other individual legally authorized by the
State to perform abortions: Provided, however, That any
individual who is not a physician or not otherwise legally
authorized by the State to perform abortions, but who nev-
ertheless directly performs a partial-birth abortion, shall
be subject to the provisions of this section.
‘‘(c)(1) The father, if married to the mother at the
time she receives a partial-birth abortion procedure, and
if the mother has not attained the age of 18 years at the
time of the abortion, the maternal grandparents of the
fetus, may in a civil action obtain appropriate relief, unless
the pregnancy resulted from the plaintiff’s criminal con-
duct or the plaintiff consented to the abortion.
‘‘(2) Such relief shall include—
‘‘(A) money damages for all injuries, psycho-
logical and physical, occasioned by the violation of
this section; and
‘‘(B) statutory damages equal to three times
the cost of the partial-birth abortion.