Prof. Keith Burgess-Jackson posts,

According to Robert Novak, 61% of Americans want partial-birth abortion (i.e., infanticide) to be prohibited by law. See here. The main Democrat candidates for president -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Bill Richardson -- want partial-birth abortion (i.e., infanticide) to be allowed by law. If I�m the Republican nominee, I�m describing the procedure in vivid detail at every campaign stop and pointing out that my opponent wants it to be legal. All�s fair in love and politics.

As a candidate, he's presumably not going to mention that the alternative, still-legal second term procedure (dilation and evacuation) does almost exactly the same thing to the fetus, but inside the woman's body instead of outside it. This increases the probability that a medical instrument or a piece of the fetus will pierce her interior or accidentally remain inside to cause an infection. Because as a candidate, why would he want to point out what really happens when legislation is based on procedures rather than the age of the fetus -- on micromanaging physicians instead of drawing clear lines for the point at which a fetus become a legal person? It's so much easier to demonize one's opponents based on half-truths, and especially to ignore that they are asking only for a health exception. As a candidate, will Burgess-Jackson also be advocating the prosecution of emergency room on-call OB-GYNs who use dilation and extraction to remove terminal fetuses from miscarrying mothers in order to minimize trauma to those women's reproductive systems? Presumably a law professor would want a law, particularly one against infanticide, to be fully enforced.

All's fair in love and the politicization of women's health.