Pro-choice and death).....(only pro-choice and death comment)

[Cheri]

Why are you beating a dead horse? Partial birth abortion has been banned for 5 years. They don't do that procedure any more. Finsihed. Done with.

If you don't like how I provide links to prove my point then ignored my post.

 

[jillio]

If you don't like how I provide links to prove my point then ignored my post.

What exactly are you trying to prove? Your link is from 1993. Partial Birth Technique has been outlawed since 2003. And your quotes are hearsay. There is nothing to prove. Outlawed since 2003. Dead horse. Quit beating it.

Again,directly copied and pasted from your Wiki link in a previous post:

This statute prohibits a method of abortion in the United States that it names "partial birth abortion". The procedure described in the statute is usually used in the second trimester,[3] from 18 to 26 weeks, some of which occur before and some of which occur after viability. The law itself contains no reference to gestational age or viability. The present statute is directed only at a method of abortion, rather than at preventing any woman from obtaining an abortion.[4]

 

[Cheri]

What exactly are you trying to prove? Your link is from 1993. Partial Birth Technique has been outlawed since 2003. And your quotes are hearsay. There is nothing to prove. Outlawed since 2003. Dead horse. Quit beating it.

You are missing the whole point of why these people had their abortion and under what condition, some of them were not even medical condition to save the life of the mother, It was choose based on not wanted to keep this pregnancy. Isn't it illegal to preformed an abortion above the 1st trimester unless it is use to save a life? I've shown you proof where the law can be broken.

 

[Reba]

...Partial birth abortion has been banned for 5 years. They don't do that procedure any more. Finsihed. Done with....

Whoa, wait a minute! Just because certain procedures are "banned" or "illegal" does NOT mean they are not performed.

 

[Reba]

Do you mean that they also can ignore Partial Birth Abortion law, too when they know US partial birth abortion law was banned in 2003?

Yes. If an abortionist gets paid enough money, and thinks that no one will find out, then of course they will break the law.

Just because something is a law, it doesn't mean everyone obeys the law.

 

[Reba]

And at 14, parental consent is required. Maybe we should be looking at the parents as well as the doctors. And wehther the law was broken would be dependent upon whether there was a medical basis for an abortion at 22 weeks as specified by law. If there was, and it is documented in the medical records, then the physicans were not in violation. I think we can safely assume that is why the medical records were suponeaed.

You can "assume" whatever you want.

 

[Liebling:-)))]

Yes. If an abortionist gets paid enough money, and thinks that no one will find out, then of course they will break the law.

Just because something is a law, it doesn't mean everyone obeys the law.

I am total surprised to know about this but I remember your past posts about the law that everyone will get in trouble for violate the law. We all must obey the law... Right? but partial birth abortion is the worst... I would consider it as a murder... Yes, I already read several links, you provided in previous posts but I am total surprised that they violate the law for get enough money than legal. Those threads got me confused more and more over partial birth abortion issues which we know that it was banned in 2003... I understand now why they did illegal for money... *shake my head disguistly*

 

[Reba]

I am total surprised to know about this but I remember your past posts about the law that everyone will get in trouble for violate the law. We all must obey the law... Right? but partial birth abortion is the worst... I would consider it as a murder... Yes, I already read several links, you provided in previous posts but I am total surprised that they violate the law for get enough money than legal. Those threads got me confused more and more over partial birth abortion issues which we know that it was banned in 2003... I understand now why they did illegal for money... *shake my head disguistly*

Sadly, lots of people do awful illegal things for money.

 

[jillio]

You are missing the whole point of why these people had their abortion and under what condition, some of them were not even medical condition to save the life of the mother, It was choose based on not wanted to keep this pregnancy. Isn't it illegal to preformed an abortion above the 1st trimester unless it is use to save a life? I've shown you proof where the law can be broken.

Its illegal to drive over the speed limit, too.

And since you do not have access to these people's medical records, you are not qualified to state what the medical condition was prior to the abortion being performed. Therefore, you do not know for certain whether the procedure was legal or illegal, based on the fact that you do not possess knowledge of the medical condition. You ar simply taking a bunch of unrelated, out of context statements and attempting to use them as proof. Further, you are using a procedure that has been outlawed to create an emotional component that is totally unrelated.

 

[jillio]

I am total surprised to know about this but I remember your past posts about the law that everyone will get in trouble for violate the law. We all must obey the law... Right? but partial birth abortion is the worst... I would consider it as a murder... Yes, I already read several links, you provided in previous posts but I am total surprised that they violate the law for get enough money than legal. Those threads got me confused more and more over partial birth abortion issues which we know that it was banned in 2003... I understand now why they did illegal for money... *shake my head disguistly*

There is absolutely nothing to support the claim that anyone is performing this technique that the anti-abortion crowd has renamed "Partial Birth Abortion." They renamed it that in an attempt to evoke an emotional response from people. It was outlawed in 2003, and a physician who performs it can not only loose his medical license, but he can be put in prison for using this technique. Before 2003, it was a legal medical procedure, but it was only used in abortions past the 1sr trimester, and it had to be supported, through medical records and medical evidence, that the mother's life was at stake, or that the fetus had a birth defect that was so severe that they would not have lived.

When an abortion is performed in the second trimester to save a mother's life, or in the case of a birth defect that is so severe that it is incompatible with life, a different medical technique must be used to accomplish the goal of treatment. That is because the conditions of the pregnancy are different. Just like removing a very small lesion requires a minimally invasive technique. However, if that lesion has developed into a large tumor, the medical procedure to remove it is more invasive.

 

[jillio]

Whoa, wait a minute! Just because certain procedures are "banned" or "illegal" does NOT mean they are not performed.

And you have no proof that they are performed, either. You are simply attempting to manipulate emotions by the constant referral to such.

 

[jillio]

You can "assume" whatever you want.

Yes, I can. Just as you are assuming that an illegal act was committed without proof, or even substantial support, that it was.

 

[Cheri]

And you have proof Jillio that they are not doing any illegal abortions? No why? because it hasn't happened to you yet.

 

[Reba]

And you have no proof that they are performed, either. You are simply attempting to manipulate emotions by the constant referral to such.

I don't make up these things. If you don't want to believe them, that's your prerogative.

Do you have proof that they did not happen?

 

[jillio]

Its entirely uineccessary to disprove that which has not been proven.

 

[Reba]

From the court transcript:

Dr. Timothy Johnson, a plaintiff in the case, is chair of the department
of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan Medical School.
He has performed second-trimester dismemberment abortions and observed
partial-birth abortions, and was offered as an expert witness for the plaintiffs.21

Dr. Johnson testified from his own experience about performing dismemberment abortions, and gave his opinion about the partial-birth abortions he had observed. Dr. Johnson described observing how doctors who did partial-birth abortions “used a crushing instrument to deliver the head.”22 This provoked further questions from Judge Casey:

THE COURT: Can you explain to me what that means.
THE WITNESS: What they did was they delivered the fetus intact until the
head was still trapped behind the cervix, and then they reached up and crushed
the head in order to deliver it through the cervix.
THE COURT: What did they utilize to crush the head?
THE WITNESS: An instrument, a large pair of forceps that have a round,
serrated edge at the end of it, so that they were able to bring them together
and crush the head between the ends of the instrument.
THE COURT: Like the cracker they use to crack a lobster shell, serrated
edge?
THE WITNESS: No.
THE COURT: Describe it for me.
THE WITNESS: It would be like the end of tongs that are combined that
you use to pick up salad. So they would be articulated in the center and you
could move one end, and there would be a branch at the center. The instruments
are thick enough and heavy enough that you can actually grasp and
crush with those instruments as if you were picking up salad or picking up
anything with—
THE COURT: Except here you are crushing the head of a baby.
THE WITNESS: Correct.23

Another of plaintiffs’ expert witnesses was Dr. Marilynn Fredriksen, an
associate professor in clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern
University Medical School. In establishing her expertise on the issue of abortion, plaintiffs’ attorney asked her how many dismemberment abortions she has done in her career. She answered, “I really don’t know, but probably
thousands.” “Thousands, plural?” Judge Casey queried. “Thousands, plural,”
she answered.24

Dr. Fredriksen has also done partial-birth abortions, and in her testimony
about performing a partial-birth abortion she described how she does not
always need to pierce the baby’s skull before completing delivery; sometimes
“grasping forceps” will do the trick. Judge Casey inquired further:
THE COURT: Excuse me. Grasping forceps, does that mean you crush the
skull?
THE WITNESS: You compress the skull, yes.
THE COURT: You crush it, right?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: Yesterday you mentioned sometimes you use your finger,
right, rather than using scissors?
THE WITNESS: No, that is not my testimony.
THE COURT: Isn’t that what you said?
THE WITNESS: No, that is not. I said the scissors would be important to
make an incision at the base of the skull, but I don’t use suction. I use my
finger to disrupt the contents of the cranial cavity, to thereby collapse the
skull and allow delivery of the fetus.
THE COURT: So you use your finger to get the contents of the skull out
rather than sucking the contents of the skull out, is that correct?
THE WITNESS. Yes.25

Dr. Cassing Hammond, another plaintiff in the case who has performed
“thousands” of abortions,26 is an assistant professor in obstetrics and gynecology at the Northwestern University School of Medicine. According to his own testimony, Dr. Hammond does use his finger—or scissors, or anything
else on his table that will get the job done—to puncture the baby’s head:
Q. Dr. Hammond, do you always use scissors or other instruments to breech
the fetal head or the fetal neck in the course of doing an intact D&E of this kind?
A. Not always. It depends on the fetus. If you’ve got a fetus that is earlier
in gestation, the skull, or calvarium, it is soft. It isn’t as firmly formed. So in
those cases you can often do this just with your finger, you can do this digitally.
In some cases the scissors probably after 20 weeks I am more likely to
use them. We actually have a number of instruments on the table that I can
use, whatever seems like it is going to be most effective.27
Dr. Stephen Chasen, another plaintiff, is associate professor of obstetrics
and gynecology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He has
done 500 abortions in his career, including 200 dismemberment and 75 partial-
birth abortions.28 In his expert testimony he described the way he finds
the place on the baby’s head to puncture: “I place a clamp on the front part of
the cervix and, applying mild traction to this, it exposes the skin at the back
of the fetal neck at the site through which I place the scissors. So I can in
almost all cases actually visualize the spot through which I place the scissors.29

On cross-examination, counsel for the Government walked him through
the steps he takes in a partial-birth abortion:
Q. You wrap a small sterile towel around the fetus, because it is slippery,
and after the legs are out you pull on the sacrum, or the lower portion of the
spine, to continue to remove the fetus, right?
A. Right.
Q. When the fetus is out to the level of the breech, you place another,
larger towel around the first small towel, right?
A. Right.
Q. You gently pull downward on the sacrum until the shoulder blades
appear, right?
A. Right.
Q. Then, with your hand on the fetus’s back, holding it with the towel,
you twist in a clockwise or counterclockwise motion to rotate the shoulder,
right?
A. Right.
Q. The shoulder in front or the arm in front is swept out with your fingers,
and then you rotate the other side of the fetus to sweep out the other arm,
right?
A. Right.
Q. Then the fetus is at a point where only the head remains in the cervix,
correct?
A. That’s correct.
Q. That is when you make the decision based on the gestational age and
the amount of cervical dilation, whether the head will fit out intact, whether
you can tuck the head of the fetus to its chest, or whether you have to decompress
the skull to remove the fetus’s head, right?
A. It is based on the size of the fetal head and the cervical dilation. I don’t
directly consider the gestational age.
Q. If you are able to deliver the head by flexing the chin against the fetal
chest—and you have been able to do this several times . . . Doctor?
A. There have been a few occasions, yes.
Q. Then you remove the fetus with the towel, you put it on the table, and
you turn back to the woman to deal with the placenta, right?
A. That’s right.
Q. If you can’t do that, you know you are going to have to crush the head,
and so you take a clamp and you grasp the cervix to elevate it, and then your
assistant there in the operating room will pull down on the fetus’s legs or back,
gently lowering the fetus’s head toward the opening of the vagina, right?
A. Right.
Q. That is when you put two fingers at the back of the fetus’s neck at the
base of the skull where you can feel the base of the skull, and then you
puncture the skull with the scissors, right?
A. I usually can see it as well as feel it. But yes.
Q. At that point you see some brain tissue come out, and you are 100
percent certain that you are in the brain, so you open the scissors to expand
the hole, remove the scissors, and put the suction device in the skull, right?
A. Correct.
Q. You turn on the suction, and typically the fetus comes right out with
the suction device still in its skull, right?
A. Right.30
Dr. Gerson Weiss, a plaintiff and expert witness at trial, is chair of the
department of obstetrics and gynecology and women’s health at the UMDNJ New Jersey Medical School. He claims to have done approximately 1,500 to
2,000 abortions, including 300 to 500 dismemberment and partial-birth abortions.
31 Dr. Weiss testified that, not only is the baby’s neck visible in a partial-
birth abortion, but also a portion of the baby’s head: “Visualize in your
mind this. The cervix has to be dilated enough to allow the entire trunk of the
fetus to pass through it. The neck of the fetus is much smaller than the shoulders
and the trunk but a larger thing, the shoulders and the trunk have passed
through. So, not only is the neck through but a portion of the skull which is
vividly, you know, exactly where it is and you see it, it’s above the neck.”32
Judge Casey questioned Dr. Weiss about finding the place on the baby’s
head to puncture:
THE COURT: You do it by feel, don’t you?
THE WITNESS: You always feel it. It’s right there where your finger is.
THE COURT: If you feel it you can’t see it.
THE WITNESS: Usually you see it. So, when it’s right there you can usually,
under direct vision, insert a sharp instrument into the skull or, at worst,
by feel, not blindly, because you know exactly where it is and you feel it
with your finger.33
The fact that the baby is alive during the partial-birth procedure—a fact
formerly contested by abortion activists—was confirmed by a number of
plaintiffs’ witnesses.

Dr. Carolyn Westoff, a plaintiff and expert in the case, is a professor of
epidemiology and population and family health in the School of Public Health
at Columbia University. She has performed hundreds of abortions including
dismemberment and partial-birth abortions, fifty of which she performed or
supervised in 2003.34 Dr. Westoff testified that there is “usually a heartbeat”
when she commences delivery in a partial-birth abortion, and that when she
collapses the skull, the fetus is living.35

The fact that the baby is still living at this point in the abortion was also
confirmed vividly here by Dr. Johnson in a series of questions from Judge Casey:
THE COURT: An affidavit I saw earlier said sometimes, I take it, the fetus
is alive until they crush the skull?
THE WITNESS: That’s correct, yes, sir.
THE COURT: In one affidavit I saw attached earlier in this proceeding,
were the fingers of the baby opening and closing?
THE WITNESS: It would depend where the hands were and whether or not
you could see them.
THE COURT: Were they in some instances?
THE WITNESS: Not that I remember. I don’t think I have ever looked at the
hands.
THE COURT: Were the feet moving?
THE WITNESS: Feet could be moving, yes.36

 

[jillio]

And you have proof Jillio that they are not doing any illegal abortions? No why? because it hasn't happened to you yet.

Once again, Cheri, this is not 22 years ago. We are talking about today. The year is 2008, and the laws regarding abortion are very specific.

I don't have proof that you aren't out robbing banks, either. Unless there is solid evidence that you are out robbing banks, proof that you aren't is completely unncessary.

In other words, until you have proof that doctors are performing illegal abortions at the rate that you claim they are, there is nothing to disprove. The lack of presecution speaks for itself.

 

[jillio]

From the court transcript:

Can you provide a link for this, Reba. I am very interested in the date of the transcript. If it was prior to 2003, it has no bearing on the illegality of the procedure today. Prior to 2003, this procedure was legal under specific criteria. It is now illegal.

Trephining was once a legal and accpeted medical practice. However, I don't think you will find many parctitioners still engaging in the practice.

 

[Cheri]

Once again, Cheri, this is not 22 years ago. We are talking about today. The year is 2008, and the laws regarding abortion are very specific.

What's the differences between 22 years ago and now when it was illegal 22 years ago also.

 

[Reba]

More:

Judge Casey displayed a keen interest in learning whether, and to what
extent, abortion doctors inform their patients about the details of the abortion
procedures they will perform. The following is an exchange between
Judge Casey and Dr. Johnson:

THE COURT: When you describe the possibilities available to a woman do
you describe in detail what the intact D&E or the partial birth abortion involves?
THE WITNESS: Since I don’t do that procedure I wouldn’t have described it.
THE COURT: Did you ever participate with another doctor describing it to
a woman considering such an abortion?
THE WITNESS: Yes. And the description would be, I would think, descriptive
of what was going to be, what was going to happen; the description.
THE COURT: Including sucking the brain out of the skull?
THE WITNESS: I don’t think we would use those terms. I think we would
probably use a term like decompression of the skull or reducing the contents
of the skull.
THE COURT: Make it nice and palatable so that they wouldn’t understand
what it’s all about?
THE WITNESS: No. I think we want them to understand what it’s all about
but it’s—I think it’s—I guess I would say that whenever we describe medical
procedures we try to do it in a way that’s not offensive or gruesome or
overly graphic for patients.
THE COURT: Can they fully comprehend unless you do? Not all of these
mothers are Rhodes scholars or highly educated, are they?
THE WITNESS: No, that’s true. But I’m also not exactly sure what using
terminology like sucking the brains out would—
THE COURT: That’s what happens, doesn’t it?
THE WITNESS: Well, in some situations that might happen. There are different
ways that an after-coming head could be dealt with but that is one way
of describing it.
THE COURT: Isn’t that what actually happens? You do use a suction device,
right?
THE WITNESS: Well, there are physicians who do that procedure who use
a suction device to evacuate the intracranial contents; yes.37
Judge Casey pursued this line of questioning with Dr. Westhoff as well:
THE COURT: I want to know whether that woman knows that you are going
to take a pair of scissors and insert them into the base of the skull of her
baby, of her fetus. Do you tell her?
THE WITNESS: I do not usually tell patients specific details of the operative
approach. I’m completely—
THE COURT: Do you tell her that you are going to then, ultimately, suck
the brain out of the skull?
THE WITNESS: In all of our D&Es the head is collapsed or crushed and the
brains are definitely out of the skull but those are—
THE COURT: Do you tell them that?
THE WITNESS: Those are details that would be distressing to my patients and
would not—information about that is not directly relevant to their safety.
THE COURT: Don’t—whether it’s relative to their safety or not don’t you
think it’s since they’re giving authorization to you to do this act that they
should know precisely what you’re going to do?
THE WITNESS: That’s actually not the practice I have of discussing surgical
cases with patients.
THE COURT: I didn’t ask you that. I said don’t you think they ought to know?
THE WITNESS: No, sir, I don’t.38
Judge Casey questioned Dr. Chasen about the information he gives his
patients before a dismemberment abortion:
THE COURT: Do you tell them straight out what you are doing? No sugar
coating, just you tear it off and remove it in pieces?
THE WITNESS: There is nothing I can do to make this procedure palatable
for the patients. There is no sugar coating.
THE COURT: I didn’t ask you that, Doctor. I know it is not pleasant. I want
to know whether or not these people know, have a fully-educated discussion
with you what you are going to do.
THE WITNESS: We have a full and complete discussion about the fact that
in most cases the fetus will not pass intact through the cervix and in many cases—
THE COURT: No, let’s go back. I asked you a simple question. Do you tell
them you are going to tear limbs off?
THE WITNESS: I don’t have simple discussions with my patients. I have
involved discussions. I can share with you what I tell my patients.
THE COURT: Go ahead. I am asking you, do you tell them you tear it off?
THE WITNESS: I initiate the discussion in general terms, and they always
include the possibility that destructive procedures will be done to facilitate
removal of the fetus.
THE COURT: Do you do it in nice sugar-coated words like that?
THE WITNESS: My patients are under no illusions and they don’t regard
that as sugar-coating and they are usually devastated—
THE COURT: How do you know, Doctor, do you see into their minds?
THE WITNESS: These are patients most of whom I have cultivated a relationship,
and I can tell.39

The only pain expert at trial was Government witness Dr. Kanwaljeet
Anand.40 Dr. Anand testified that “[f]etuses that are beyond 20 weeks of
gestation can feel pain.” He explained that, by this age: a baby can respond
to sound, light, and taste, indicating that the central nervous system is functioning
and that the baby is conscious; all of the skin surfaces and mucus
membranes have sensory receptors; and all of the anatomical structures
needed to perceive and process pain are present and functional.41 He testified
that evidence demonstrates that “between 20 and 30 weeks of gestation
there is the greatest sensitivity to pain.”42
Dr. Anand explained why the partial-birth abortion procedure will cause
“prolonged and excruciating pain to the fetus” beyond 20 weeks of gestation:
“Given the increased sensitivity to pain at that period of gestation, the parts
of the procedure associated with grasping the lower extremity of the fetus,
of manipulation and rotating the fetus within the confines of the uterus, of
delivering the fetus through an incompletely dilated cervix as well as the
surgical incision made at the back of the head, the puncturing of the
intracranial cavity through . . . the membranes that covered the brain, all of
those parts of the procedure would be associated with prolonged and excruciating
pain to the fetus.”43
Moreover, anesthesia administered intravenously to a pregnant woman
would not have an impact on the baby “because the concentrations that are
generated in the fetal blood would not be effective.”44 In fact, to ensure that
there was a state of fetal anesthesia, Dr. Anand testified, “we would need to
give anywhere from five to 50 times the dose of regular anesthetic that is
used for the mother,”45 which would produce “a very high likelihood of toxic
side effects in the mother.”46
Plaintiffs offered no expert witness to counter this testimony. Rather, in
order to diminish the powerful evidence that partial-birth abortion causes
“prolonged and excruciating pain,” plaintiffs used their cross-examination
of Dr. Anand to make the point that other methods of abortion at this stage
would be quite painful, too. For example, plaintiffs’ counsel asked Dr. Anand
to compare the pain inflicted by a partial-birth abortion to the pain inflicted
by a dismemberment abortion:
Q. Are you familiar with the dismemberment D&E?
A. I am familiar with it to the extent that I have read about the procedure.
I have not performed any of those procedures.
Q. In a dismemberment D&E, it is your opinion, isn’t it, that at 20 weeks
of gestation a fetus undergoing that procedure would experience severe pain?
A. That is correct.
Q. Isn’t it true, Doctor, that assuming the same gestational age, a D&E
procedure involving dismemberment would be more painful to a fetus than
a D&X procedure?
A. That is possible, yes.47

When plaintiffs’ counsel inquired about pain caused by an induction abortion
procedure, Dr. Anand testified that “as a result of the induction procedure
there would be pain associated to the fetus.”48 Finally, when plaintiffs’
counsel pursued the possibility of pain caused by injecting a needle into the
baby’s heart, Dr. Anand testified that the baby would feel pain “from the
point of entry of the needle into the fetal body to the point when fetal demise
occurs as a result of cardiac arrest.”49

Judge Casey pursued the issue of fetal pain:

THE COURT: Do you tell them whether or not it hurts the baby?
THE WITNESS: We have that conversation quite a bit with patients, your Honor.
THE COURT: And what’s your answer?
THE WITNESS: We say several things to the patient, your Honor. First of
all, we tell the patient that it’s controversial what exactly—what the fetus
experiences of pain at various gestational ages. We share with them the fact
that even for normally developed fetuses people debate the beginning of
sensation of the fetus. They debate at what gestational age the fetus is able to
interpret pain as we think about it. We share with the patients that even
though there are speculations about these things among normal fetuses, when
you start dealing with the kind of circumstances that we confront where a
baby may not have its forebrain or may not have its brain . . . which is in
essence a completely disrupted and in some cases spinal cord, that there is
no data that lead us to know what the baby feels.
THE COURT: How about when there is no anomaly instead of all these
exceptions, how about when there is no anomaly?
THE WITNESS: We say that there is a possibility and one of the things that
we are doing with most of these patients after 16 to 18 weeks is they’re all
under IV anesthesia . . . which may confer some pain control to the fetus. We
also share with them their alternatives and we share with them the fact that
we really don’t know what the fetus feels and some of the other things that
they can do for pain. For example, frankly, your Honor, I think we sugar coat
some of the other options and we share this with patients. . . . But the honest
truth is, how do we know that taking this huge instrument and poking it into
the baby’s heart and injecting a poison hurts any less than my rapidly cutting
the umbilical cord or transecting the spinal cord with my scissors? Or how
do we know that poisoning the environment that the baby is in with digoxin
is any more painful or less painful than my doing a very rapid D&E. . . . So
what we are really asking the patients that I see is, which do you think is
going to hurt worse for your fetus?50

Judge Casey pursued the issue of fetal pain with Dr. Westhoff as well:

THE COURT: Do any of them ask you whether or not the fetus experiences
pain when that limb is torn off?
THE WITNESS: I do have patients who ask about fetal pain during the procedure,
yes.
THE COURT: And what do you tell them?
THE WITNESS: I, first of all, assess their feelings about this, but they of
course even notwithstanding the abortion decision, would generally tell me
they would like to avoid the fetus feeling pain. I explain to them that in
conjunction with our anesthesiologists that the medication that we give to
our patients during the procedure will cross the placenta so the fetus will
have some of the same medications that the mother has.
THE COURT: Some.
THE WITNESS: Yes, that’s right.
THE COURT: What do you tell them, does the fetus feel pain or not when
they ask?
THE WITNESS: What I tell them is that the subject of the fetal pain and
whether a fetus can appreciate pain is a subject of some research and controversy
and that I don’t know to what extent the fetus can feel pain but that its—
THE COURT: Do you tell them it feels some pain?
THE WITNESS: I do know that when we do, for instance an amniocentesis
and put a needle through the abdomen into the amniotic cavity that the fetus
withdraws so I certainly know based on my experience that the fetus [will]
withdraw in response [to] a painful stimulus.51
Judge Casey also discussed the issue of fetal pain with Dr. Johnson:
THE COURT: I heard you talk a lot today about dismemberment D&E procedure,
second trimester; does the fetus feel pain?
THE WITNESS: I guess I—
THE COURT: There are studies, I’m told, that say they do. Is that correct?
THE WITNESS: I don’t know. I don’t know of any—I can’t answer your
question. I don’t know of any scientific evidence one way or the other.
THE COURT: Have you heard that there are studies saying so?
THE WITNESS: I’m not aware of any.
THE COURT: You never heard of any?
THE WITNESS: I’m aware of fetal behavioral studies that have looked at
fetal responses to noxious stimuli.
THE COURT: Does it ever cross your mind when you are doing a dismemberment?
THE WITNESS: I guess whenever I—
THE COURT: Simple question, Doctor. Does it cross your mind?
THE WITNESS: Does the fetus having pain cross your mind?
THE COURT: Yes.
THE WITNESS: No.
THE COURT: Never crossed your mind.
THE WITNESS: No.52
Judge Casey also questioned Dr. Frederiksen about partial-birth abortion
and fetal pain:
THE COURT: Do you tell them whether or not that hurts the fetus?
THE WITNESS: I have never talked to a fetus about whether or not they
experience pain.53
THE COURT: I didn’t say that, Doctor. Do you tell the mother whether or
not it hurts the fetus?
THE WITNESS: In a discussion of pain for the fetus it usually comes up in
the context of how the fetus will die. I make an analogy between what we as
human beings fear the most—a long protracted painful death.
THE COURT: Doctor, I didn’t ask you—
THE WITNESS: Excuse me, that’s what I tell my patients.
THE COURT: But I’m asking you the question.
THE WITNESS: I’m sorry.
THE COURT: And I’m asking you whether or not you tell them that.
THE WITNESS: I feel that fetus dies quickly and it’s over quickly. And I
think from a standpoint of a human being our desire is that we have a quick
death rather than a long protracted death—
THE COURT: That’s very interesting, Doctor but it’s not what I asked you.
I asked you whether or not you tell them the fetus feels pain.
THE WITNESS: I don’t believe the fetus does feel pain at the gestational
ages that we do, but I have no evidence to say one way or the other so I can’t
answer that question.54

Judge Casey also questioned Dr. Chasen about partial-birth abortion and
fetal pain:
THE COURT: Does it hurt the baby?
THE WITNESS: I don’t know.
THE COURT: But you go ahead and do it anyway, is that right?
THE WITNESS: I am taking care of my patients, and in that process, yes, I
go ahead and do it.
THE COURT: Does that mean you take care of your patient and the baby be
damned, is that the approach you have?
THE WITNESS: These women who are having [abortions] at gestational
ages they are legally entitled to it—
THE COURT: I didn’t ask you that, Doctor. I asked you if you had any care
or concern for the fetus whose head you were crushing.
THE WITNESS: No.55

http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/RusePBAonTrial.pdf