Senate Approves Partial-Birth Abortion Ban

The Senate on Thursday night approved a controversial bill that would make a late-term abortion procedure a criminal offense and assert federal authority for the first time over a specific, established medical procedure.

The bill prescribes up to two years in prison for physicians who perform so-called partial-birth abortions. But it contains no sanctions against women who undergo the procedure. The House has approved a nearly identical measure.

As approved by the Senate on a 54-44 vote, the measure would provide for a narrow exception to criminal prosecution. It would exempt doctors who perform the procedure when it is the only one that could save the life of a pregnant woman.

But Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, denounced the exemption as “a phony measure that will protect only a fraction of the women whose lives are threatened by continuing their pregnancies.”

An attempt by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to provide for an exception for doctors who perform the procedure when a woman’s health is in jeopardy was defeated 51-47.

An amendment sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) that would have ditched the bill in favor of a resolution saying the Senate had no right to make such medical decisions was voted down 53 to 44.

The successful “life of the woman” exception was contained in an amendment written by Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and was approved by a vote of 98 to 0.

It was unclear if the House will accept that provision in conference committee. The lower chamber approved an otherwise-identical bill on Nov. 1 by a vote of 288 to 139, with 73 Democrats joining 215 Republicans in the majority.

That vote was a stark manifestation of the extent to which abortion continues to be a wedge issue in both political parties. Among the Democrats who voted to ban the procedure were House Democratic leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and Reps. John D. Dingell of Michigan and Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island, whose father, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), is one of the most vociferous critics of the ban.

The 54-44 roll call by which the Senate passed the measure had nine Democrats and 45 Republicans voting in favor, with 36 Democrats and eight Republicans voting against. Boxer and Feinstein both voted no.

On the day that the House approved its version of the legislation, President Clinton issued a statement saying that he “cannot support” the measure “because it fails to provide for consideration of the need to preserve the life and health of the mother.”

And Michelman on Thursday night renewed her call for Clinton to veto the measure. The Senate vote was short of the two-thirds majority needed to override any veto.

The bill’s backers say that the procedure is inhumane, tantamount to infanticide and often used by women who change their minds late in pregnancy about giving birth.

But the bill’s critics maintain that women have few, if any, feasible alternatives in some life-threatening situations, especially in late pregnancies that involve a severely deformed fetus which is unlikely to survive after birth. They also argue that a woman’s right to choose should not be deprived by lawmakers who are ill-equipped to make medical decisions.

The controversial procedure requires a physician to extract a fetus, feet first, from the womb and through the birth canal until all but its head is exposed. Then the base of the fetus’ skull is punctured, a suction catheter is inserted through the opening and the brain is removed.