NARAL Pro-Choice Washington : Issues

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First Federal Ban on Abortions, 2003

Modified: 01/18/2007

In 2003, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed the first federal law banning a medical procedure. This ban is intentionally deceptive and is the first federal law since Roe v. Wade to criminalize safe abortion procedures.

This law bans safe, medically appropriate abortions performed as early as the 12th week of pregnancy. It has no exception to protect a woman’s health, or for cases of severe fetal anomalies. Part of a larger effort to outlaw all abortions.

The rhetoric surrounding so-called “partial-birth” abortion is often at the center of the legislative controversy encompassing women’s right to choose. Anti-choice activists seek to use inflammatory rhetoric such as “partial-birth” and “infanticide” to describe abortion procedures and sensationalize the abortion debate to advance their political agenda.

Due to this powerful but medically false rhetoric, many states have passed “partial-birth” bans that are written so broadly that they could restrict abortion on any pregnancy. Furthermore, they fail to identify any specific medical procedure they seek to outlaw, and thus apply to all abortion procedures.

In 2000, the Supreme Court held that Nebraska’s ban on so-called “partial-birth” abortion was unconstitutionally broad and failed to protect women’s health. (Steinberg v. Carhart)

Respected health organizations such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Medical Women’s Association, the American Nurses Association and the American Public Health Association oppose these bans.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, an organization dedicated to women’s health, opposes so-called “partial-birth” abortion bans, calling them “inappropriate, ill advised and dangerous.”

When informed, the public recognizes the deceptive and dangerous nature of these legislative attacks on reproductive freedom. Each of the three times this issue has been placed directly before the public – in Washington state, Colorado and Maine – voters have rejected these bans.

The government would help women more by focusing its energies on policies that reduce the need for abortion, rather than banning safe medical procedures and thus endangering women’s health and lives.

Contraceptives, including emergency contraception, reduce unwanted pregnancies and thus the need for abortion. Improved access to education and contraception would address the root causes of unintended pregnancy and would reduce the need for abortion.