N.J. Legislature Overrides Late-Term Abortion Veto

In another blow to her image as a Republican star, the state Senate overrode Gov. Christine Todd Whitman’s veto Monday and banned a controversial abortion procedure, except when the life of a woman is in danger.

The 27-13 vote, the minimum needed for an override, gave final approval to the ban on a certain type of late-term abortion. Whitman wanted the ban to include another exception, when the health of the mother is at risk. The General Assembly overrode the veto two weeks ago.

The vote was the first time the Legislature, controlled by Whitman’s own party, overrode one of her vetoes. It was also the first restriction on abortion to pass in New Jersey since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized the procedure 24 years ago.

The law was immediately challenged in court by abortion rights groups, and Whitman said she would not have the state attorney general defend it. That means the Legislature will have to hire its own attorney.

Whitman, who narrowly won reelection in November, said the measure would have a stronger chance of being upheld in court if it contained the exception she wanted.

“The viable unborn fetus has a right to protection,” she said. “But I also believe in the importance of the physical life and the health of the mother.”

Abortion opponents who targeted Whitman during the campaign because of her veto said such a condition would gut the law.

Senate President Donald DiFrancesco said he believed the ban would survive a challenge. Of Whitman’s proposed exception, he said: “I think a woman’s health is a very speculative and broad term.”

Last spring, the Legislature passed the bill to prohibit what opponents call partial-birth abortions, which involve the extraction of the fetus late in pregnancy. President Clinton has twice vetoed bills to impose a federal ban on the procedure, called “infanticide” by supporters of the override.

The Supreme Court has ruled that states can intervene and restrict abortions after viability as long as there are exceptions for the life and health of the mother.

Minutes after the override, attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood asked a federal judge to block it. The judge declined but scheduled a hearing for today.

“Suffice to say every court that has addressed a similar law has found it unconstitutional,” said Talcott Camp, staff attorney for the ACLU. “We’re going to the judge and asking that it not be enforced.”