Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act

Common card · No. 472744

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (Pub. L. 108–105 (text) (PDF), 117 Stat. 1201, enacted November 5, 2003, 18 U.S.C. § 1531, PBA Ban) and signed by President George W. Bush, 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 law became the first, and so far only, federal law in the United States restricting the abortion procedure itself. All other federal abortion laws simply concern funding restrictions, emergency care protocols, FDA approval of medications, or other secondary aspects...

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