Bush Vetoes a Second Bill Allowing Abortion Funds : D.C. Women Will Get No U.S. Money

President Bush today vetoed a $4-billion bill for the District of Columbia that would have allowed local funds to be used to pay for abortions.

It was Bush’s second veto of abortion-related legislation in the last week.

“I informed Congress earlier that I would veto this bill if it contained funds to pay for abortion,” Bush said in a statement handed to reporters as Air Force One landed in Costa Rica.

“This year, regrettably, the Congress has expanded the circumstances under which federal funds could be used to pay for abortion,” Bush said. “I am therefore compelled to disapprove (the District of Columbia appropriation).”

On Saturday, Bush vetoed the $156.7-billion spending bill for the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Education because that bill allowed the use of federal money to pay for abortions of poor victims of rape and incest.

Bush has supported abortions in such cases but opposes any change in the current law that bars federal funds for abortions except in cases where the life of the mother is endangered by the pregnancy.

House supporters of the HHS bill failed in their effort Wednesday to override the veto. They won a majority of votes but not the two-thirds majority needed to pass the bill over the President’s objections.

Abortion-rights supporters are not expected to be able to override the veto of the district bill, and both appropriations bills will have to be reworked by House and Senate Appropriations committees.

Bush’s action was immediately denounced by supporters of legal abortion.

Kate Michelman, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, said Bush has an “extremist ideology” and showed “callous disregard for the health and well-being of poor and vulnerable women in crisis pregnancies.”

“Today’s veto is one more attempt by an out-of-touch Administration to allow politicians to interfere in intensely private decisions about abortion,” she said, predicting the Administration’s stance would hurt Republican candidates in upcoming elections.

Sandra Faucher, director of the National Right to Life political action committee, said the group was pleased with Bush’s action but she dismissed critics of the President who she said should not act as if they were surprised by the veto.

Sen. Brock Adams (D-Wash.) said that in vetoing the abortion funds, Bush also vetoed an anti-drug bill for the district because the catchall measure contained $32 million for the beleaguered city’s war on drugs and drug-related violence.

“We have set back the war on drugs in the United States,” Adams said, because of Bush’s “personal belief on abortion.”

Sen. Joseph R. Biden (D-Del.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said: “We came up with a strategy and we came up with the money. All we wanted the President to do was to come up with his signature. So (now) the so-called drug war in Washington, D.C., is not only no better off than it was before, I think it is worse off than it was before.”