Joint Hearing on "Partial-Birth Abortion: The Truth"
March 11, 1997
Testimony by Curtis Cook, M.D.
Maternal Fetal Medicine
Butterworth Hospital Michigan State College of Human Medicine
My name is Dr. Curtis Cook. I am a board-certified Obstetrician/Gynecologist and a subspecialist in Maternal-Fetal Medicine (also known as Perinatology or High Risk Obstetrics). In my practice I take care of referred complicated pregnancies because of preexisting chronic medical conditions of the mother, or suspected abnormalities in the baby. I am also the Associate Director of our region's Maternal-Fetal Medicine division and also serve as Assistant Residency Director for our Obstetrics and Gynecology training program, I am an Assistant Clinical Professor at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, and a member of the American College of OB/GYN, The Society of Perinatal Obstetricians, The American Medical Association, and the Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics. I am a founding member of PHACT (Physicians Ad Hoc Coalition for Truth about Partial Birth Abortion), which I helped organize after hearing the appalling medical misinformation circulated in the media regarding this procedure. PHACT includes in Its membership over 400 physicians from Obstetrics, Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Pediatrics. Many of these physicians are educators or heads of departments, and also include the former Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop. All that in required of a physician for membership is an Interest in maternal and child health, and a desire to educate the population on this single issue.
I must begin my statement by defining partial birth abortion as the feet first delivery of a living infant up to the level of its after coming head, before puncturing the base of its skull with a sharp instrument and sucking out the brain contents, thereby killing it and allowing the collapse of its skull and subsequent delivery. This description is based upon the technique of Dr. Haskell of Ohio, who has subsequently identified It as accurate. He has referred to his technique as "D & X" (Dilatation and Extraction), while Dr. McMahon of California refers to it as an "intact D & E." An ACOG ad hoc committee came up with the hybrid term "intact D & X". As you can see, many terms are used and are not clear in their description.
Partial birth abortion is mostly performed in the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy. However, these procedures have been performed up to the ninth month of pregnancy. The majority of patients undergoing this procedure do not have significant medical problems. In Dr. McMahon's series, less then ten percent were performed for maternal indications, and these included some ill-defined reasons such as depression, hyperemesis, drug exposed spouse, and youth. Many of the patients undergoing partial birth abortion are not even carrying babies with abnormalities. In Dr. McMahon's series, only about half of the babies were considered "flawed", and these included some easily correctable conditions like cleft lip and ventricular septal defect. Dr. Haskell claimed that eighty percent of his procedures were purely elective, and a group of New Jersey physicians claimed that only a minuscule amount of their procedures were done for genetic abnormalities or other defects. Most were performed on women of lower age, education, or socioeconomic status who either delayed or discovered late their unwanted pregnancies. It is also clear that this procedure occurs thousands of times a year, rather than a few hundred times a year, as claimed by pro-abortion advocates. This has been independently confirmed by the investigative work of The Washington Post, The New Jersey Bergen Record and the American Medical Association News.
One of the often ignored aspects of this procedure is that it requires three days to accomplish. Before performing the actual delivery, there is a two day period of cervical dilation that involves forcing up to twenty five dilators into the cervix at one time. This can cause great cramping and nausea for the women, who are then sent to their home or to a hotel room overnight while their cervix dilates. After returning to the clinic, their bag of water is broken, the baby is forced into a feet first position by grasping the legs and pulling it down through the cervix and into the vagina. This form of internal rotation, or version. is a technique largely abandoned in modern obstetrics because of the unacceptable risk associated with it. These techniques place the women at greater risk for both immediate (bleeding) and delayed (infection) complications. In fact, there may also be longer repercussions of cervical manipulation leading to an inherent weakness of the cervix and the inability to carry pregnancies to term. We have already seen women who have had trouble maintaining pregnancies after undergoing a partial birth abortion.
There is no record of these procedures in any medical text, journals, or on-line medical service. There is no known quality assurance, credentialling, or other standard assessment usually associated with newly-described surgical techniques. Neither the CDC nor the Alan Gultmacher Institute have any data on partial birth abortion, and certainly no basis upon which to state the claim that it is a safer or even a preferred procedure.
The bigger question then remains: Why ever do a partial birth abortion? There are and always have been safer techniques for partial birth abortion since it was first described by Dr. McMahon in 1989 and Dr. Haskell in 1992. The usual and customary (and previously studied) method of delivery at this gestation is the medical induction of labor using either intravaginal or intramuscular medications to cause contractions and expulsion of the baby. This takes about twelve hours on average, and may also include possible cervical preparation with the use of one to three cervical dilators (as opposed to the three-day partial birth abortion procedure, with up to 25 dilators in the cervix at one time). This also results in an intact baby for pathologic evaluation, without involving the other risk of internally turning the baby or forcing a large number of dilators into the cervix. The only possible "advantage" of partial birth abortion, if you can call it that, is that it guarantees a dead baby at time of delivery.
The less common situation of partial birth abortion involves, an abnormal baby. These conditions do not threaten a woman over and above a normal pregnancy, and do not require the killing of the baby to preserve her health or future fertility. I have taken care of many such women with the some diagnoses as the women who provided testimony on this issue in the past. Each of these women stated that they needed to have a partial birth abortion performed in order to protect their health or future fertility. In these cases of trisomy (extra chromosomal material), hydrocephaly (water on the brain), polyhydramnios (too much amniotic fluid) and arthrogryposis (stiffened baby), there are alternatives to partial birth abortion that do not threaten a woman's ability to bear children in the future. I have personally cared for many cases of all of these disorders, and have never required any technique like partial birth abortion in order to accomplish delivery. Additionally, I have never had a colleague that I have known to have used the technique of partial birth abortion in order to accomplish delivery in this same group of patients. Moreover, there are high profile providers of third trimester abortions who likewise do not use the technique of partial birth abortion.
In the even rarer case of a severe maternal medical condition requiring early delivery, partial birth abortion is not preferred, and medical induction suffices without threatening future fertility. Again, the killing of the fetus is not required, only separation from the mother.
Finally, I wish to address the fetal pain issue, since it has been claimed that a fetus feels no pain at these gestational ages. This is about as ridiculous as the earlier claim that the anesthesia of partial birth abortion put the baby into a medical coma and killed it prior to the performance of the auctioning technique. This was no small claim to the many pregnant women undergoing non-obstetric surgery every day in this country. Fortunately, this was soundly denounced by both the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the Society of Obstetrical Anesthesia and Perinatology. In the course of my practice, we must occasionally perform life-saving procedures on babies while still in the uterus, I have often observed babies of five to six months gestation withdraw from needles and instruments, much like a pain response. Dr. Fisk in England has recently reported an increase in fetal pain response hormones during the course of these procedures at these same gestational ages. In addition, we frequently observe the standard grimaces and withdrawals of neonates born at six months gestation like any other pain response in a more mature infant.
While it is not my desire for legislators to enter into the realm of medical policy making, there are times when the public health risk needs to be addressed if the medical community is either unwilling or unable to address it. We have seen this precedent for female circumcision and forty-eight hour postpartum stays. I believe the unnecessary, unstudied, and potentially dangerous procedure of partial birth abortion is unworthy of continuance in modern obstetrics. It neither protects the life, the health or the future fertility of women, and certainly does not benefit the baby. For these reasons, I urge you to support the ban on partial birth abortion.
I thank you for the opportunity to share my testimony and my concern for the women and children of this country.
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