Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act

Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003

Long title	An Act to prohibit the procedure commonly known as partial-birth abortion.
Nicknames	PBA Ban
Enacted by	the 108th United States Congress
Citations
Public law	Pub.L. 108–105
Statutes at Large	117 Stat. 1201
Codification
Titles amended	18
U.S.C. sections created	18 U.S.C. § 1531
Legislative history
Introduced in the Senate as S. 3 by Rick Santorum (R-PA) on February 14, 2003 Passed the Senate on March 13, 2003 (64–33) Passed the House on June 4, 2003 (282–139 as H.R. 760, inserted in lieu by unanimous consent) Reported by the joint conference committee on September 30, 2003; agreed to by the House on October 2, 2003 (281–142) and by the Senate on October 21, 2003 (64–34) Signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 5, 2003
United States Supreme Court cases
Gonzales v. Carhart

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (Pub.L. 108–105, 117 Stat. 1201, enacted November 5, 2003, 18 U.S.C. § 1531,PBA Ban) is a United States law prohibiting a form of late-term abortion called partial-birth abortion, referred to in some medical literature by its less common name of intact dilation and extraction. Under this law, "Any physician who, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both." The law was enacted in 2003, and in 2007 its constitutionality was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Gonzales v. Carhart.

This statute prohibits a method of partial birth abortion. The procedure described in the statute is usually used in the second trimester, from 15 to 26 weeks of which occur before 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.

The statute includes two findings of Congress:

(1) A moral, medical, and ethical consensus exists that the practice of performing a partial-birth abortion... is a gruesome and inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary and should be prohibited.

(2) Rather than being an abortion procedure that is embraced by the medical community, particularly among physicians who routinely perform other abortion procedures, partial-birth abortion remains a disfavored procedure that is not only unnecessary to preserve the health of the mother, but in fact poses serious risks to the long-term health of women and in some circumstances, their lives. As a result, at least 27 States banned the procedure as did the United States Congress which voted to ban the procedure during the 104th, 105th, and 106th Congresses.

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