House Panel OKs Bill to Ensure Abortion Rights : Legislation: A GOP effort to require parental consent for minors is turned aside. The measure’s chance of becoming law is uncertain.

A House panel approved legislation Wednesday codifying a woman’s right to an abortion after turning aside a number of restrictive amendments, including a GOP-backed proposal to require parental consent before a minor has a legal abortion.

The House Judiciary Committee voted, 20 to 15, to send the Freedom of Choice Act to the full House, where its prospects are unclear.

The committee voted, 19 to 16, to reject an amendment offered by Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) mandating parental consent or, at least, notification before a minor received an abortion. The panel also struck down a Republican-supported provision that would have required that only licensed physicians perform abortions.

The legislation began as a preemptive strike by abortion rights advocates against the possibility that the Supreme Court would overturn its Roe vs. Wade decision, which guaranteed a woman’s right to an abortion, or hand down a ruling that would make it harder for a woman to obtain an abortion.

The legislation also would establish federal standards supplanting recent court decisions that have allowed individual states to place limits on abortions. However, abortion foes argued that the bill went too far in the other direction.

Anti-abortion activists, such as the National Right to Life Committee, distributed leaflets during the committee session and are gearing up for an intensive campaign aimed at conservative lawmakers to prevent the bill from reaching a vote in the House and Senate.

“There is a serious question about whether it would ever get to the (House) floor,” Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the anti-abortion group, said immediately after the House committee’s final vote.

“If the bill is enacted, pro-abortion groups will launch a new wave of litigation directed at literally hundreds of state laws that affect access to abortion. Many of these laws were clearly permissible under Roe vs. Wade, but that will not prevent them from being invalidated by statute-based legal challenges,” Johnson said.

Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose) disagreed. He said the committee’s vote gives momentum to the abortion rights advocates.

“We hope to count our votes and have it on the floor in three to four weeks,” he said.

The Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee approved a version of the bill March 25.

Moderate and conservative Democrats in both houses may be reluctant to champion the bill. Some observers say borderline supporters of the legislation, concerned that they would become targets of abortion opponents, may feel less pressure to satisfy abortion rights activists now that President Clinton is expected to appoint an abortion rights supporter to the Supreme Court. Justice Byron R. White, who will step down later this year, has consistently opposed abortion.

Anti-abortion activists also predicted that they may even receive unintended assistance from Democrats and abortion rights advocates who are engaged in a low-intensity squabble over how much latitude to grant individual states on their ability to limit public funding and impose waiting periods for abortion on demand.

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) said that, unless such fights are resolved, he may hold up the legislation to prevent conservative lawmakers from exploiting the differences of opinions by crippling the bill with amendments on the floor. Last year, Foley prevented a similar bill from reaching the floor after it had been approved by the Judiciary Committee.