The pro-abortion crowd was all atwitter this week because W signed a bill banning a certain late-term abortion procedure.

The procedure is dilation and extraction, but is commonly called "partial-birth abortion" because the abortionist pulls the fetus partially out of the womb before killing it.

This term bugs the pro-abortion crowd for some reason.

And it's funny how it gets reported in the news. Most of the time the term is used it is preceded by the phase "so-called."

It's the "so-called" partial-birth abortion ban.

It's kind of strange how that phrase is used by the mainstream media, really. You have the so-called war on drugs, the so-called war on terror, so-called family values, so-called religious right, so-called contract with America or the so-called liberal media.

Seems it only gets attached to things put forth by conservatives. You never hear anybody say the so-called environmental movement or the so-called woman's right to choose.

But I digress.

The abortionist who invented the procedure described it in a paper.

That paper became part of the Congressional Record during the debate over the just-passed ban.

Here how the inventor describes the procedure.

"The surgeon introduces a large grasping forcep, such as Bierer or Hern, through the vaginal and cervical canals into the corpus of the uterus. Based upon his knowledge of fetal orientation, he moves the tip of the instrument carefully towards the fetal lower extremities. When the instrument appears on the sonogram screen, the surgeon is able to open and close its jaws to firmly and reliably grasp a lower extremity. The surgeon then ... pulls the extremity into the vagina.

"With a lower extremity in the vagina, the surgeon uses his fingers to deliver the opposite lower extremity, then the torso, the shoulders and the upper extremities.

"The skull lodges at the internal cervix. Usually there is not enough dilation for it to pass through. The fetus is oriented dorsum, or spine up.

"At this point, the right-handed surgeon slides the fingers of the left hand along the back of the fetus and "hooks" the shoulders of the fetus with the index and ring fingers (palm down). Next he slides the tip of the middle finger along the spine towards the skull while applying traction to the shoulders and lower extremities. The middle finger lifts and pushes the anterior cervical lip out of the way.

"While maintaining this tension, lifting the cervix and applying traction to the shoulders with the fingers of the left hand, the surgeon takes a pair of blunt curved Metzenbaum scissors in the right hand. He carefully advances the tip, curved down along the spine and under his middle finger until he feels it contact the base of the skull under the tip of his middle finger.

"Reassessing proper placement of the closed scissors tip and safe elevation of the cervix, the surgeon then forces the scissors into the base of the skull or into the foramen magnum. Having safely entered the skull, he spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening.

"The surgeon removes the scissors and introduces a suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull contents. With the catheter still in place, he applies traction to the fetus, removing it completely from the patient."

O.K., this is the procedure Congress just banned. How can this be such a bad thing?

Well, according to the The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, it's a terrible thing.

The organization is airing TV ads in selected markets that highlight the fact that the ban signed by W violates the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship. It also says President Bush is the first president ever to criminalize safe medical procedures.

Yeah, it's a safe medical procedure as long as you're not the half-out-of-the-mom baby with the scissors in the back of your head.

NARAL also says, "The so-called 'partial-birth' abortion bans are attempts by anti-choice politicians and activists to sensationalize the abortion debate through heated rhetoric and to shift the focus from the fact that women, not the government, should decide matters of their own reproductive freedom."

No, what it does is shift the focus to the fact that babies are dying.

Pro-abortion folks are truly up in arms over this partial-birth thing.

And they're afraid of the slippery slope. They're really worried that if W gets another appointment to the Supreme Court, maybe the landmark (not the so-called landmark) Roe V. Wade could be overturned.

I guess my reaction is, "So what?"

The pro-abortion crowd has had its way with this issue for 30 years and 39 million dead babies.

If it flips around the other way someday, so be it. I hope it happens.

And after that, 150 years from now when I'm long dead and buried, it's my hope that our culture will have evolved to the point were people look back and say things like, "Can you believe those barbarians in 2000 actually killed their unborn?" [[In-content Ad]]