Indeed, proponents of the ban have said one political side-benefit to the prolonged debate on the issue has been to encourage the public to think about the human fetus as a living being.
"As this debate has gone on and on, we have found the American public has shifted," said Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.). "They are recognizing that this is a child that has rights and beauty."
But some analysts have argued that the long-running debate, by focusing on banning only one kind of abortion, may have hurt rather than helped the broader antiabortion cause.
"They indisputably have succeeded in getting the message that this particular method of late-term abortion is extremely unpalatable," said David J. Garrow, a historian at Emory University in Atlanta who has studied abortion law. "But in so emphasizing how nasty and unpleasant late-term abortions are, I think the antiabortion forces have unintentionally sent a very powerful, though silent, message that early-term abortions ... are decisively less problematic."
