Argument: Banning partial birth abortions is in line with popular and accepted moral standards

here is a vast amount of support in the United States for a ban on partial-birth abortion. Opinion polls have shown a consistent increase in support for a ban: as high as 70% in favour to 25% against in January 2003. [1] Furthermore, in 1997 the House of Representatives voted 295-136, and the Senate 64-36, in favour of a ban. For President Clinton to veto it was undemocratic; [2] for President Bush not to pass it would have been to break a campaign promise.

[1] Gallup, ‘Abortion’, 30 November 2011, http://www.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx

[2] Craig, Larry E., ‘Clinton Claims on Partial-Birth Abortion Still Not True -- Not Even 'Legally Accurate'’, United States Senate Republican Policy Committee, 15 September 1998, http://rpc.senate.gov/releases/1998/partial-birth.htm

Candidate 1: "These opinion polls are misleading, as they force respondents to choose between an outright ban and no control at all – it is impossible for them to register support for partial-birth abortion in cases where the mother’s physical or psychological health is in danger. A majority of Americans are still in favour of the right to abortion. More importantly, this should not be the business of the general public or of legislators. Nobody who would prefer not to have a partial-birth abortion will be made to have one. Most people who want it banned will never face a situation where it directly affects them in any case. We should leave decisions up to the people who are directly affected by them - not to outsiders, who are free to express their opinion but not to impose it on everyone else. This is a campaign promise George Bush should not keep."
Candidate 2: "Arguing that adoption is a good option shows a fundamental lack of awareness of what is involved in carrying an unwanted foetus to term. Pregnancy can be stressful at the best of times; being forced to carry an unwanted child against your will is enormously traumatic, and can cause permanent psychological harm, as can the knowledge that your own unwanted child is growing up elsewhere and may one day return to find you. If a mother chooses to carry a foetus to term and then give it up for adoption, that’s fine, but nobody should force her to do so."
Candidate 3: "Nobody would choose to have a partial-birth abortion over a much simpler abortion in the first trimester. Partial-birth abortions are either medically or psychologically necessary. If a young mother either does not find out she is pregnant or is too scared to tell anyone, if a woman is raped and decides at any stage that she does not want the baby, if a woman is threatening suicide if she is forced to carry a baby to term, we should not make her suffer further by forbidding her from ending the pregnancy. For all sorts of reasons, many women do not seek any kind of medical help until late in their pregnancy - this should not mean they forfeit their right to an abortion. In any case, if abortion is allowed at all, and given that the foetus is not recognised in law as a human being, it should be nobody’s business but the mother’s whether and at what stage she chooses to have an abortion."
Candidate 4: "This is misleading - in partial-birth abortion, as the term suggests, the foetus is not fully born when it is killed: the purpose of collapsing the skull is to allow the foetus’ head to pass more easily through the birth canal. At no point in the process is a live foetus entirely outside the womb, so legal personhood is never an issue."

These opinion polls are misleading, as they force respondents to choose between an outright ban and no control at all – it is impossible for them to register support for partial-birth abortion in cases where the mother’s physical or psychological health is in danger. A majority of Americans are still in favour of the right to abortion. More importantly, this should not be the business of the general public or of legislators. Nobody who would prefer not to have a partial-birth abortion will be made to have one. Most people who want it banned will never face a situation where it directly affects them in any case. We should leave decisions up to the people who are directly affected by them - not to outsiders, who are free to express their opinion but not to impose it on everyone else. This is a campaign promise George Bush should not keep.
