"The term 'partial-birth abortion' is neither recognized in the medical literature nor used by physicians who perform second-trimester abortions," reads the first endnote in Ruth Bader Ginsberg's dissent from Gonzales v. Cahart. Should this surprise us? Practitioners of criminal deeds often employ euphemisms to mask the true nature of their work. Partial-birth abortion, five years after Congress outlawed it, is finally criminal as far as the courts are concerned.

The New York Times speaks of "a controversial abortion procedure" and "the prohibited procedure." That the law in question is called the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act ensures at least one precise reference to "the controversial abortion procedure." CBSNews.com refuses to call a partial birth abortion a partial birth abortion: "In covering the story, CBSNews.com has decided to go with this phrasing whenever possible: 'what the law calls a partial birth abortion.'" CNN is worse. They refer to "a type of late-term abortion" (which type?), "a rarely performed type of abortion carried out in the middle-to-late second trimester" (can you get more specific?), and "the procedure" (what procedure?) Not until paragraph fourteen does CNN.com inform: "Doctors call this type of late-term abortion an 'intact dilation and evacuation.' Abortion foes term it a 'partial-birth abortion.'" Even this crumb to accuracy is inaccurate. Many doctors don't rely on euphemisms and acronyms to obfuscate the truth. Some call it what it is: a partial-birth abortion.

What does "dilation and evacuation" tell you? Not much. What, exactly, is being "evacuated"? Why is partial-birth abortion a more apt description? Because that is what the "procedure" is: a doctor partially delivers a fully-developed child, holds the baby's head in the birth canal, stabs a hole in the base of the child's neck with scissors, collapses its skull with a suction, and then, and only then, allows the child--now dead--to enter the world outside the womb, or put another way, to "evacuate" the womb. Any faithful description of this "procedure" is going to be gruesome because the procedure itself is gruesome. There is no getting around that.

Perhaps "partial-birth abortion" is not strong enough. "Baby murder" and "infanticide" seem more accurate. But I'll settle for "partial-birth abortion."

Isn't there "dilation" and "evacuation" (vacating the womb) in a normal birth procedure? So medically, it's indistinguishable from actual birth.

Those words don't say anything about puncturing though. They need a word for puncture in there--cause oddly enough, it slipped the doctor's razor-precise terminology that it doesn't work without puncturing.

The pro-abortion position depends on generality and obfuscation. If the gruesome details were part of the public debate, only a few evil people would defend a woman's "right" to have her own child brutally murdered.

Unfortunatley, this ruling will probably not save a single child's life. Another late term procedure can be used in its place, viz., dismemberment. It may be the case that States will be emboldened to pass more restrictions. In the end, however, another good justice on the court is required -- Kennedy will not go much further.

Why go through the medical hassle. Just wait until the kid is born and execute it. Because, basically, that is what late term abortion is about. Only the latter is more brutal and likely much more painful.

It's funny that the defenders of this carnage are the same people who are offended when somebody lights up a smoke in public. Amazin'.

That would be surgical hassle.