I have served in Bomet, Kenya, East Africa at Tenwek Mission Hospital with World Medical Mission on five occasions since 1991. I have never seen a situation in which a late term or "partial birth" abortion would be required. I have delivered over 7,000 children. [I observed] at least five times that number of deliveries while in training, serving in a U.S. Army hospital and in private practice with three partners. Partial birth abortion is never indicated.

We, the undersigned physician members of the Presbyterian Church (USA) affirm that with modern medicine, abortion of a fetus who is able to live outside the womb is never needed to preserve the life or health (including future reproductive capability) of the mother. There are no conditions that make it necessary to induce the abortion of a viable fetus, and there are no med-ical indications for the procedure commonly termed "partial birth abortion." Partial birth abortion is a procedure used predominantly late in pregnancy in which a living child is forced into the breech position and delivered except for the head. The base of the skull of the child is then punctured by surgical scissors and the contents of the skull removed by a suction catheter in order to reduce the size of the head and deliver the baby dead.

If problems develop in a pregnancy at a point when the fetus could live outside the womb and continuation of the pregnancy endangers the life or physical health of the mother, abortion is not the only or a necessary means of terminating the pregnancy. The mother’s safety can best be ensured by using procedures that provide the fetus with a chance for live birth. Common medically-accepted procedures for terminating late term pregnancies that allow the fetus to live when problems develop are prematurely induced labor with a vaginal delivery or a scheduled or emergency Caesarian section.

We urge the General Assembly of the PC(USA), and all Presbyterians, to express moral opposition to the abortion of fetuses after viability, including opposition to use of the procedure known as partial-birth abortion/intact dilation and extraction.