Judge asks if aborted babies cry

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge considering the constitutionality of a law banning certain second-trimester abortions asked a doctor some tough questions yesterday, including if doctors ever hear a cry during an abortion.

U.S. District Judge Richard C. Casey posed the question as he heard evidence about the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, a law being studied by judges at simultaneous trials in New York, San Francisco and Lincoln, Neb.

“Does the baby ever make any noise or cry?” Judge Casey asked Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, who estimates she performs or supervises 500 or more abortions annually in Manhattan.

“It does not withdraw or move,” Dr. Westhoff said.

“Do the hands ever move?” the judge asked.

“The fetus is limp,” Dr. Westhoff answered.

Dr. Westhoff said women have late-term abortions for a variety of reasons; the vast majority want a child but reject the pregnancy because the fetus has abnormalities, she said.

At one point, Judge Casey, who is blind, asked Dr. Westhoff: “A condition that causes blindness, can that be detected?” He added he wanted to know if “a mother can detect in advance that a baby will be born blind.”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Dr. Westhoff answered.

Dr. Westhoff was among a series of doctors questioned by the judge this week about whether a fetus feels pain, and exactly what women are told about the techniques used during an abortion.

Abortion-rights supporters are challenging the federal ban, the first substantial limitation on abortion since the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision. The law will not be enforced before the courts rule on its constitutionality in a case expected to end at the Supreme Court.

The simultaneous litigation centers on the ban of what lawmakers defined as partial-birth abortion and what doctors call intact dilation and extraction, or D&X.;