Argument: Partial birth abortions are safer than any available alternative

The D&amp;X abortion procedure generates the minimum of risk for the mother. Banning it means that the only alternatives are premature labour induction for which mortality rates are 2.5 times higher and is emotionally very difficult due to the length of time it takes [1] (it is also likely to be unacceptable to the proposition) and hysterotomy (which results in removal of the womb). Finally as those who are having late partial birth abortions are likely to be suicidal, or at least will be very determined to get rid of their child they are the most likely to resort to back-street methods that cause damage to themselves.

[1] The Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, ‘Abortion’, http://www.columbia.edu/itc/hs/pubhealth/modules/reproductiveHealth/abortion.html

Candidate 1: "Although many people who are against partial-birth abortion are against abortion in general, there is no necessary link, as partial-birth abortion is a particularly horrifying form of abortion. This is for the reasons already explained: it involves a deliberate, murderous physical assault on a half-born baby, whom we know for certain will feel pain and suffer as a result. We accept that there is some legitimate medical debate about whether embryos and earlier foetuses feel pain; there is no such debate in this case, and this is why partial-birth abortion is uniquely horrific, and uniquely unjustifiable."
Candidate 2: "Allowing partial-birth abortion is utterly inconsistent with the growing, and legally recognised, respect for foetal rights in the United States. If a man can sue the mother of his child for taking drugs during pregnancy which discolour their child’s teeth, if pregnant women can be banned from the smoking sections of restaurants, what sense does it make to allow exactly the same foetuses to have their skulls deliberately crushed?"
Candidate 3: "There is no medical consensus on this issue. Where Dilation and Extraction is performed without inducing partial birth then it has the potential to be just as safe for the mother."

There is no medical consensus on this issue. Where Dilation and Extraction is performed without inducing partial birth then it has the potential to be just as safe for the mother.
