Partial-Birth Abortion Ban May Be Hard to Enforce

[bluestateguy]

To quote Andrew Jackson, "John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,101941,00.html

WASHINGTON — President Bush has said he will sign into law a measure that threatens fines and jail time for doctors who perform partial-birth abortions (search) — but nobody seems to know how the law would be enforced.

cut"I don't imagine there'd be anyone watching," said Angela Martin, president of Maryland Right to Life (search).

cut

But Maryland, for instance, has never passed a partial-birth ban, and is one of only four states that provide state funding of abortions without a court order, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute (search).

John Nugent, the president of Planned Parenthood (search) of Maryland, said clinics there will continue "business as usual." He believes the new law is so problematic that he does not expect it to be enforced.

[proud patriot]

1. Enforcement has always been difficult for new laws

:shrug:

[ant]

2. lifers will "enforce" it

As long as the law is on the books - and quite frankly I don't think it will be for long - it's a tool the lifers can use to intimidate/harras providers.

Life Dynamics in particular has a pretty nasty history on this sort of stuff:
http://abortionprolife.com/WeCanHelp.html
http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists/20020601roddy0601p3.asp

[MercutioATC]

3. You DO realize that "partial birth abortions" are a Freeper construct...

At NO time has this supposed procedure been used except as a medical procedure in extreme circumstances to save the life of the mother. It is NOT and has NEVER been a regular method of abortion. Rallying against "partial birth abortion" is akin to rallying against "randomly hacking off limbs". Amputations are a last resort to save a life. Nobody performs them under anything other than extreme circumstances.