Shots assist in aborting fetuses
Lethal injections offer legal shield
By Carey Goldberg, Globe Staff
August 10, 2007

In response to the Supreme Court decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, many abortion providers in Boston and around the country have adopted a defensive tactic. To avoid any chance of partially delivering a live fetus, they are injecting fetuses with lethal drugs before procedures.

That clinical shift in late-term abortions goes deeply against the grain, some doctors say: It poses a slight risk to the woman and offers her no medical benefit.

"We do not believe that our patients should take a risk for which the only clear benefit is a legal one to the physician," Dr. Philip D. Darney, chief of obstetrics at San Francisco General Hospital, wrote in e-mail. He has chosen not to use the injections.

But others, although they do not perform the banned procedure, feel compelled to do all they can to protect themselves and their staff from the possibility of being accused. Upheld in April, the federal ban is broadly written, does not specify an age for the fetus, and carries a two-year prison sentence. the rest