Steve Scalise

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (Pub. L. 108–105), 117 Stat. 1201, enacted November 5, 2003, 18 U.S.C. § 1531,[1] PBA Ban) is a United States law prohibiting a form of late termination of pregnancy called "partial-birth abortion", referred to in medical literature as 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 abortion; the statute calls the prohibited method "partial birth abortion". The procedure described in the statute is used in the second trimester, from 15 to 26 weeks, most of which occurs before viability. The law itself contains no reference to gestational age or viability. The statute is directed only at a method of abortion, rather than at preventing any woman from obtaining an abortion

In response to this statute, many abortion providers have adopted the practice of inducing fetal demise before beginning late-term abortions. Typically, a solution of potassium chloride or digoxin is injected directly into the fetal heart using ultrasound to guide the needle. This is often done by providers who do not perform intact dilation and extraction procedures (as well as by those who do) because they feel the broad wording of the ban compels them "to do all they can to protect themselves and their staff from the possibility of being accused"