President Clinton vetoed a 1995 bill which would have banned partial-birth abortions. Congressional supporters of the right to life vowed to override the President’s veto. In September 1996, they finally failed to do so.

Partial-birth or D&X abortion is a particularly horrific form of late-term abortion, in which the child is delivered live until only the head remains in the birth canal.

The abortionist then uses a pair of scissors to rip a wound in the base of the living child’s skull. He inserts a tube into the wound and sucks the helpless child’s brain out with a vacuum pump. The now-dead infant’s skull collapses and the body is removed the rest of the way from the mother.

H.R. 1833, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, passed both houses of Congress with bipartisan support in late 1995. But incredibly, despite the support this bill received from both sides of the aisle, President Clinton acted on behalf of his most radical pro-abortion allies and vetoed the Act.

The House overrode his veto. Then, on September 26 the Senate failed in its attempt to override. The Senate fell 9 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to win this battle for the unborn. While killing children has been legal since the judicial branch’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, this was the first direct endorsement of the United States government’s executive and legislative branches of what is undeniably out and out infanticide.

The partial birth abortion procedure takes fully formed unborn children to the brink of birth, and then brutally kills them. Senator Don Nickles (R-OK) argued from the Senate floor, “A couple of inches of movement then we would be liable for murder.”

“It is a deplorable practice,” stated Senator Spencer Abraham (R-MI) from the Senate floor. “We need to take a stand for our moral beliefs in this nation.”

Unfortunately, the Senate was unable to muster enough courage to take an unwavering stand for the unborn.

What follows is a precise medical depiction and description of partial birth abortion. After looking it over, hopefully you’ll understand what the big deal is:

What Does God Think About This?

2 Kings 24:2-4: “The LORD sent Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite raiders against him. He sent them to destroy Judah, in accordance with the word of the LORD proclaimed by his servants the prophets. Surely these things happened to Judah according to the Lord’s command, in order to remove them from his presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all he had done, including the shedding of innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD was not willing to forgive.” [Manasseh, Israel’s chief executive, had committed one particular sin--advocating the killing of children.]

Psalm 72:12-14: “For God will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death. He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in his sight.”

Proverbs 6:16-19: “There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.”

Ezekiel 35:6 “Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I will give you over to bloodshed and it will pursue you. Since you did not hate bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you.”

What are Others saying about it?

Syndicated columnist Linda Bowles, September 23: “When the history of the rise and fall of our nation is finally written, it may well be recorded that the single event which signaled the beginning of the end was the countenance of mass infanticide by the president of the United States and the subsequent failure of the people to rise up in righteous anger.”

Chuck Colson’s comments on Focus on the Family radio broadcast, live from the Senate, immediately after the failure to override the veto:

“The President of the United States has successfully vetoed a bill that would have stopped infanticide. This is a defining moment for our country.

“Gary Bauer and I were standing, watching the rejoicing among all the pro-choice lobbyists out here. How can you rejoice? Go home and say ‘Hurray, we won, we’re going to kill more babies tonight!’? I mean, what has happened to us as a society?

“I want to go home and weep and get on my knees and beg that God would hold back his hand of judgment … but you wonder why he should.

“It may be time for Christians to say ‘enough,’ and do something like the German Christians did in the 1930’s with the Barmen Declaration when they separated themselves from an apostate church and from a country that had simply turned in utter rebellion against the will of God. We are at a point where, as a church, as Bible believing Christians, we have to seriously, soberly think what kind of support we can give this government.”