Time and time again I am struck by how little people know about abortion law and practice in the U.S. This includes most people with firm opinions on abortion. For example, earlier this week I noticed one right-wing blog after another celebrating the end of “late-term abortions,” by which they obviously mean abortion of a viable fetus, presumably for frivolous reasons. Example:

Most Americans, even those who are pro-choice, understand how sick this procedure was. If a late term pregnancy was so harmful to the mother’s health, then the mother should just deliver the baby and give the baby a chance to survive. But this procedure wasn’t really about saving the life of the mother. It was about killing an unwanted baby. …

… Some lefties are angry at Justice Kennedy, claiming that he’s abandoned them, and now they’re lamenting the fact that killing a late term unborn baby by sucking its brains out is no longer legal. Of course, they disguise partial birth abortion as “women’s rights,” which is a bunch of hooey.

Here’s a feminist whose first comment was “We’re f***ed.” Sure, lady, if you mean that you can’t go to an abortionist when you’re 6+ months pregnant and have your unborn baby almost completely delivered except for his head and have his brains sucked out while he’s still alive because you just don’t feel like being pregnant any longer, then yes, I suppose you’re f***ed. Be sure to check out the comments on this feminist’s blog as well. These wacko women are beside themselves about the fact that they can’t kill their babies in this manner any longer.

But elective late-term abortions were already illegal in most states. Roe v. Wade allows states to ban abortions once the fetus has reached the gestation age at which it is potentially viable, about 23 weeks[*], except when the life and health of the mother are at risk. There are laws on the books in most states to that effect. Some of the states that don’t have such laws in effect are those which tried to enact a law without the “life and health” exception, and the law got tangled up in court challenges.

[* Recently an infant survived that was believed to have been born at 21 weeks gestation. This made international news because she was the first baby ever known to have survived after a gestation period of fewer than 23 weeks.]

A PDF document at the Alan Guttmacher web site provides an overview of abortion law in the states as of April 1, 2007. It’s a three-page document, and pages 1 and 2 are a table that provides basic information on the abortion laws of each state. If you doubt what I say about elective late-term abortion already being illegal, just take a look.

The “Partial Birth” Abortion Act of 2003, while burdened with several miscarriages of fact and logic, makes no provisions for the lateness of the procedure, just the nature of the procedure. The real battle begun by this week’s SCOTUS ruling is not over “late term” abortions, but “mid term” abortions, meaning second-trimester abortions performed before a fetus is possibly viable.

Roughly 10 percent of all abortions in the U.S. are performed after the first trimester and before 20 weeks’ gestation, or about two thirds of the way through the second trimester. Some of these are performed for medical reasons, and some are elective. However, when a pregnancy is terminated before 20 weeks’ gestation, the fetus will die, no matter how the abortion is performed. No exceptions. So when people start raving about changing procedures so that “the baby has a chance to live,” they are confused.

The fact is, there is little agreement about what it was that was just banned. Depending on how the “partial birth” act is interpreted, it might ban no abortions at all, but only stipulate that abortions be performed by different means. Or, it might ban most abortions after the first trimester. And I won’t be the least bit surprised if some states “interpret” the act in a way that shuts off access to abortion entirely.

So what was just banned, exactly?

About the only point everyone seems agreed on is that the act bans a second trimester (notice emphasis) procedure called “intact D&E” (sometimes referred to as dilation and extraction, or D&X) in which all but the fetal head is extracted, then the fetal skull is pierced or crushed so it can easily pass through the birth canal. However, the far more common practice in second trimester abortions is dilation and evacuation , also called standard D&E, in which surgical instruments are used to dismember the fetus in the womb, and body parts are pulled out through the birth canal.

Exactly why one procedure is more icky than the other eludes me. However, my understanding is that some physicians prefer intact D&E (or D&X) procedures because with the standard D&E physicians must fish around for all the little fetus pieces, thus increasing risk of injury or infection to the woman. In some cases a woman whose life or health is really on the line might be at less risk with an intact D&E rather than a standard D&E.

There is one other abortion method generally used in the late second trimester called “induction.” In this procedure chemicals are introduced into the womb to cause fetal death, and then labor is induced. So far I haven’t heard anyone argue that induction is covered by the “partial birth” ban, but I also doubt many Fetus People have heard of it. My understanding is that induction is the most common method used in genuinely late-term abortions, of which I’ll speak a bit later in this post.

Analysis of this week’s Supreme Court decision written by people who seem to understand these distinctions say that the “partial birth” act actually bans only the “intact D&E,” also called D&X, procedure. It does not ban standard D&E or induction abortions, they say. Nor does it change the gestational limits of abortion, so abortions will be no more or less “late term” as they were before. And if you read this section of the Supreme Court’s deliberations, this view appears to be correct; the justices interpret the Act to ban D&X, but not standard D&E, procedures.

National Right to Life has its own views (emphasis added).

“Partial-birth abortion” is a legal term of art, defined by Congress as a matter of federal law, as quoted above.

Although supporters and opponents of the new law differ dramatically in their perceptions of what methods the law covers (as discussed below), neither side believes that the legal definition of “partial-birth abortion” is synonymous with the shifting and conflicting