Local Tea Party Leader: 'Partial Birth Abortion Ban Will Protect the Unborn'
After a “partial-birth abortion” ban passed in the Michigan legislature Wednesday, local Tea Party leader Sharon Snyder shared her feelings about the procedure in question with The Christian Post.
Snyder, a registered nurse who specializes in obstetrics, expressed her deep disapproval of the procedure – also known by its medical term, “dilation and extraction.”
“I see banning the partial-birth abortion as a good thing and a step forward that is going to protect all of us, including the unborn,” she said.
“That’s the opinion of the majority of the people in the movement,” she added, though she specified it’s too early to speak in the name of the entire Tea Party Patriots organization, which did not have a chance to form an opinion yet.
"Partial-birth abortion is wrong,” Snyder added, because it brings suffering to the baby as well as the mother. The mother suffers from artificially prolonged labor and the baby feels pain before death.
“I believe this procedure is more dangerous for the mother [than giving birth],” Snyder told CP. “I know a lot of people don’t know what it means, and that’s why they do it. And it’s brutal.”
The new bill, which passed both chambers of the Michigan legislature with a majority of votes, makes it legal to prosecute doctors who perform the procedure in the state.
The bill is currently awaiting the governor’s signature.
The new law is parallel to the federal ban on “partial-birth abortion” and was passed in order to enable local authorities to prosecute those breaking it on a state level, people familiar with the matter said.
At the same time, it has never been established with all certainty whether the procedure was practiced in Michigan at all and on what scale, reported the Detroit Free Press.
Michigan Radio reported that only a very small percentage of abortions are performed with this method – less than one fifth of one percent. The station said that some doctors occasionally choose the procedure, believing it can be less dangerous for the mother.
