Lights out on abortion.

• Author: Conklin, Melanie
• Position: Punitive, broad Wisconsin 'partial birth' abortion law provokes strike by all abortion providers

At 3:00 in the afternoon on May 20, Dr. Dennis Christensen, dressed in surgical scrubs, is standing outside his operating room and staring at the, fax machine. Following his gaze are some twenty patients, seated in the teal chairs of the waiting room at the Madison Abortion Clinic.

"I've been here since 10:30 this morning and I have twenty-seven patients who are becoming more agitated and anxious as the day goes on," says Christensen. "I'm quite sure the people causing this do not understand what these women are going through."

Christensen has not performed any abortions all day. He is not alone. Almost every abortion provider in Wisconsin has postponed procedures.

The previous night, Christensen conferred with his family and decided that he couldn't risk continuing his practice unless the district attorney assures him in writing that she will not prosecute him for doing first-trimester abortions. That's why he's at the fax machine.

For two days in May, the lights went out on abortion in Wisconsin. The reason: The state had passed a ban on "partial-birth" abortions that was so broadly written and so punitive--mandatory life imprisonment for doctors--that virtually every abortion doctor in the state chose not to risk violating it.

The shutdown in Wisconsin shows just how far-reaching the ban on "partial-birth" abortions can be. Pro-choice advocates have long maintained that such vague state laws are actually a tool to one day ban all abortions. In May in Wisconsin, that day came closer than many thought possible.

The Wisconsin law, closely modeled on the federal bill, defines a "partial-birth" abortion as "an abortion in which a person partially vaginally delivers a living child, causes the death of the partially delivered child with the intent to kill the child, and then completes delivery of the child."

Twenty-eight states have passed laws banning "partial-birth" abortions. But the Wisconsin statute is, in many ways, the most extreme. Mandatory life imprisonment is by far the severest punishment under any state law. (Many states mimic the two-year prison sentence stipulated by the federal version, which President Clinton has vetoed twice.) The Wisconsin law specifically states that life begins at conception and does not distinguish between abortions before and after viability. And it provides no exception to women who are victims of rape or incest.

Planned Parenthood went to court to prevent the implementation of the law. But on May 14...