Caption:
Dilation and Evacuation Abortion (D&E) of a 23 Week Old Fetus
Dilation and evacuation is a surgical abortion procedure that takes place after the first trimester of pregnancy.
Dilation and evacuation is performed as an outpatient surgical procedure.
The commonly held belief that this procedure is associated with subsequent cervical incompetence and adverse pregnancy outcome did not stand up to a review of the records of all patients at one institution who underwent
dilation and evacuation (D&E) at 1424 weeks' gestation between May 1996 and May 2000.
A federal district judge handed a victory to abortion rights groups Wednesday when he struck down part of a Texas law curbing access to the most common second-trimester abortion procedure, called
dilation and evacuation.
The procedure, known as
dilation and evacuation, is legal in most states.
For those like Sebastian, still in the second trimester, it is often done by a procedure called
Dilation and Evacuation in which the baby's limbs are ripped off by sharp metal jawed forceps.
A, an ObGyn, decided to perform a
dilation and evacuation D & E) involving removal of fetal parts in a blind procedure.
The court's 5-4 decision reflects the revulsion with which most Americans, including many abortion-rights supporters, view the procedure, known medically as intact
dilation and evacuation.
Kennedy, writing for the majority, clearly identifies a variant of that procedure, intact
dilation and evacuation, or D & X, as the only one that is prohibited.
Dilation and evacuation (D&E) is safer than medical abortion for second-trimester pregnancy termination, and among medical methods, misoprostol is safer than others.
Carhart that Nebraska's law prohibiting so-called partial-birth abortion is unconstitutional because it doesn't contain a health exception for
dilation and evacuation (D&E) or dilation and extraction (D&X) procedures sometimes used in terminating pregnancies after sixteen weeks or so.
