ON MARCH 21, 1996, A nurse named Brenda Pratt Shafer testified before a congressional subcommittee about a procedure commonly known as "partial-birth" abortion. This procedure, known in the medical community as intact dilation and evacuation, had been the focus of intense political and societal debate for a number of years.

Shafer testified that she had worked for three days as a nurse in an abortion clinic operated by Dr. Martin Haskell, where she had witnessed the procedure known as a partial-birth abortion. Although before this experience Shafer had been pro-choice, the details of the procedure—which she described—disturbed her. She concluded her graphic testimony with:

I have been a nurse for a long time and I have seen a lot of death—people maimed in auto accidents, gunshot wounds, you name it. I have seen surgical...