"128 head before evacuation. IDX is sometimes called \"partial - birth abortion\", which has been federally banned in the United States. In the third trimester of pregnancy, induced abortion may be performed surgically by intact dilation and extraction or by hysterotomy. Hysterotomy abortion is a procedure similar to a caesarean section and is performed under general anesthesia. It requires a smaller incision than a caesarean section and is used during later stages of pregnancy. First - trimester procedures can generally be performed using local anesthesia, while second - trimester methods may require deep sedation or general anesthesia. Abortion Debate Induced abortion has long been the course of considerable debate. Ethical, moral, philosophical, biological, rel igious and legal issues surrounding abortion are related to value systems. Opinions of abortion may be about fetal rights, governmental authority, and women's rights. In both public and private debate, arguments presented in favor of or against abortion ac cess focus on either the moral permissibility of an induced abortion, or justification of laws permitting or restricting abortion. The World Medical Association Declaration on Therapeutic Abortion notes, \"circumstances bringing the interests of a mother in to conflict with the interests of her unborn child create a dilemma and raise the question as to whether or not the pregnancy should be deliberately terminated.\" Abortion debates, especially pertaining to abortion laws, are often spearheaded by groups advo cating one of these two positions. Anti - abortion groups who favor greater legal restrictions on abortion, including complete prohibition, most often describe themselves as \"pro - life\" while abortion rights groups who are against such legal restrictions desc ribe themselves as \"pro - choice\". Generally, the former position argues that a human fetus is a human person with a right to live, making abortion morally the same as murder. The latter position argues that a woman has certain reproductive rights, especiall y the choice whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term. Roe v. Wade Roe v. Wade is a landmark decision issued in 1973 by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of the constitutionality of laws that criminalized or restricted access to abortions. T he Court ruled 7 – 2 that a right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment extended to a woman's decision to have an abortion, but that this right must be balanced against the state's interests in regulating abortions: protecting women's health and protecting the potentiality of human life. Arguing that these state interests became stronger over the course of a pregnancy, the Court resolved this balancing test by tying state regulation of abortion to the third trimester of pregnancy. Lat er, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Court rejected Roe 's trimester framework while affirming its central holding that a woman has a right to abortion until fetal viability. The Roe decision defined \"viable\" as \"potentially able to live outside t he mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid.\" Justices in Casey acknowledged that viability may occur at 23 or 24 weeks, or sometimes even earlier, in light of medical advances. In disallowing many state and federal restrictions on abortion in the United States, Roe v. Wade prompted a national debate that continues today about issues including whether, and"