Catholic Clergy Urges Abortion Veto Override

Roman Catholic cardinals and bishops, seeking to exercise political clout on a controversial topic, descended on Capitol Hill on Thursday to rouse the faithful, lobby lawmakers and pray that Congress will override President Clinton’s veto of legislation outlawing a late-term abortion procedure.

The unprecedented gathering of six cardinals and 50 bishops on the Capitol steps was the latest and most visible sign of the church hierarchy’s ardent support of a bill outlawing a procedure known to its critics as “partial-birth” abortion.

Warning that the nation is “caught in the grips of a culture of death,” Cardinal James Hickey, archbishop of Washington, prayed at the gathering that a vote to override Clinton’s veto--slated for Thursday in the House--”will be a turning point in America’s future.”

The Catholic leaders, in letters addressed to each member of Congress, called “partial-birth” abortions “an especially egregious attack on a child in the process of being born.”

Clinton vetoed the bill April 10. Thursday’s Capitol prayer vigil culminated a campaign in which Catholics at Mass have been encouraged to write legislators to urge that the veto be overridden.

The campaign yielded about 8 million postcards, according to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and has caused some abortion rights’ supporters to warn that the response could sway lawmakers.

An August memorandum from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc. cautioned affiliates that “members [of Congress] who previously voted with us are now under intense pressure to change their votes.”

Joining the Catholic clergymen Thursday were leaders of Baptist, Presbyterian and Methodist congregations, many of whom also have joined the campaign to get the “partial-birth” abortion procedure outlawed.

In vetoing the legislation, President Clinton was flanked by five women who had undergone the late-term abortions to end pregnancies in which the fetus had little or no chance of survival. Acknowledging that the procedure “appears inhumane,” Clinton warned that banning the procedure “without taking into consideration the rare and tragic circumstances in which its use may be necessary would be . . . even more inhumane.”

But those pushing for an override of the veto have sought to win support by calling attention to the medical details of the procedure, in which a fetus beyond the 24-week mark of development is delivered feet-first down the birth canal and its skull is collapsed by the suctioning of its brain. By some estimates, as many as 500 such abortions are performed yearly.