In her opening argument today, Priscilla Smith, attorney for the the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Law and Policy in New York, said the law is a naked attempt to end all abortions, not just partial-birth abortions. The state's lawyer countered by arguing that birth begins in the birth canal.
The definition is set out in a law that forbids abortions in which an unborn child is partly delivered before she is killed. When the law was passed by the Louisiana Legislature in 1997, backers said it was an attempt to outlaw the late-term procedure known as partial-birth abortion, not all abortions as Smith argued today.
The state's argument was handled by Derinda Bordlee of the Lawyers for Life organization, who was appointed as a special assistant attorney general for this case.
She said birth begins once any part of the body is in the birth canal. Allowing an abortion at that point would open the door to other types of legal killing, she argued.
"If you can kill a person who is partly in the vaginal canal, what prohibits you from killing one that is part way out? ... What prohibits you from leaving one foot in the vaginal canal and breaking the child's neck?" she asked.