On Tuesday, the state of Kansas became the first state to ban second-trimester abortion procedures.
The common second-trimester abortion procedure is often described by critics as dismembering a fetus, according to the Miami Herald.
The new law will take effect on July 1. Republican Governor Sam Brownback, a very strong abortion opponent, signed the bill imposing the ban. Governor Brownback and the National Right to Life Committee hope that the example set by the state of Kansas will prompt other states to enact the law as well.
“This law has the power to transform the landscape of abortion policy in the United States,” committee president Carol Tobias said in a statement.
There is already a motion to challenge the new law in court by the two abortion rights groups that operate in Kansas clinics and offer abortion services, Trust Women and Planned Parenthood.
The new law states that it bans the dilation and evacuation procedure and defines it as “dismemberment”. Supporters of abortion rights said that the law is vulnerable to lawsuits as it bans some abortions before a fetus can survive outside the womb and contain no mental health exception for the mother.
The new law bans the procedure except for when medically necessary to save a woman’s life or prevent irreversible damage to her physical health. The procedure states that doctors are not allowed to use forceps, clamps, scissors or any similar type of instrument on a fetus to remove it from the womb in pieces.
Because of a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld a federal ban on a late-term procedure, anti-abortion groups are confident that the new law will firmly withstand any legal challenges that may occur.
Some say, like Widener University law professor John Culhane, that this law would have been passed many times before, and is expecting it to not hold up in the courts.
Supporters of abortion rights have said that the procedure is the safest one for women who want to terminate their pregnancies during the second trimester. About nine percent of the abortions performed in Kansas last year were during the second-trimester. The state already has a ban on abortions after week 22 of pregnancy.
The CEO and founder of Trust Women, Julie Burkhart, said that the new law is dangerous and “dictates to qualified physicians how they can practice medicine and treat their patients.”
