Partial birth abortion is a surgical abortion wherein an intact fetus is removed from the womb via the cervix. The procedure may also be used to remove a deceased fetus that is developed enough to require dilation of the cervix for its extraction.

Though the procedure has had a low rate of usage, representing 0.17% (2,232 of 1,313,000) of all abortions in the United States in 2000 according to voluntary responses to an Alan Guttmacher Institute survey, it has developed into a focal point of the abortion debate. In the United States, intact dilation and extraction was made illegal under some circumstances by the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which the U.S Supreme Court upheld in the case of Gonzales v. Carhart.

This statute prohibits a method of abortion in the United States that it names ""partial birth abortion"". The procedure described in the statute is usually used in the second trimester, from 18 to 26 weeks, some of which occur before and some of which occur after viability. The law itself contains no reference to gestational age or viability. The present statute is directed only at a method of abortion, rather than at preventing any woman from obtaining an abortion.

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