Antiabortion Forces Rally Around Failed Veto Vote

The Senate failed Friday to override President Clinton’s veto of a bill outlawing the controversial procedure known as “partial-birth abortion,” a vote abortion foes vowed to use to their advantage in a handful of tight Senate races to improve prospects for the proposed ban next year.

“This is not the end of the battle. This is just one skirmish,” Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) told a meeting of the Christian Coalition moments after the 64-36 vote. “We are going to win this battle.” In an appeal for the coalition’s political activism on the issue, Lott said next year’s vote could be different if seats held by Democrats are turned over to Republicans in November’s election.

Lott singled out Senate races in California, Wisconsin, Washington, Kentucky and Illinois for the group. In all but one state--Kentucky--abortion rights candidates are squaring off against candidates who oppose abortion. Beyond that, four lawmakers who support the ban--three Republicans and a Democrat--face tough reelection bids.

In California, Democratic abortion rights proponent Barbara Boxer faces state Treasurer Matt Fong, who backs abortion rights only in the first trimester of pregnancy. Boxer led this week’s Senate fight against the proposed ban on the late-term abortion procedure.

“No woman, in my opinion, wants to visit her doctor about her pregnancy and see her senator lurking over the doctor’s shoulder,” Boxer said Thursday as the Senate debated a bid to override the president’s veto. “They don’t like us lurking over any parts of their lives, let alone an emergency medical procedure.”

Friday’s vote marked the fourth time in as many years that lawmakers have taken to the Senate floor with grisly graphics, heart-rending stories and impassioned speeches on the late-term abortion issue. The House voted 296-132 in July to overturn the veto. While that vote was enough to override the president, the Senate vote stalled the effort.

On Friday, backers of the proposed ban failed to pick up any more votes than they had when the measure was last before the Senate in 1997. But with each new election since the ban was first adopted by Congress in 1995, the measure has gained strength. In the coming election, abortion foes hope to lift their Senate forces at least to the 67 votes needed for a veto override. And with abortion a clear dividing line in seven of 12 closely contested races, they believe that goal is within their grasp.

“It’s certainly possible,” one antiabortion strategist said Friday. “There’s a decent shot at that.”

After Friday’s vote, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who has led the Senate fight to ban the procedure, promised he would seek to again bring the ban to a vote next year and declared himself “hopeful that with a new class of senators joining us, we will have the votes necessary to ban this rogue procedure.”

In the weeks leading to Friday’s vote, a group called the Pro-Life Alliance has conducted what it promised would be a $330,000 campaign of mail, radio and TV ads denouncing the late-term abortion procedure.

In the procedure, a fetus beyond the 24th week of gestation is pulled down the birth canal feet first, and before the head emerges, scissors are used to penetrate its skull so that the brain can be sucked out. Opponents of the ban argue that it is most often used to terminate pregnancies that have gone tragically awry, where carrying a fetus to full term could threaten the life or health of the mother.

In past years, many of those advertisements have been adapted to election campaigns, targeting candidates who voted against the ban.

“Anti-choice groups have been aggressively targeting senators to change their votes,” said Kate Michelman, who heads the National Abortion Rights and Reproduction Rights Action League. Among them, she cited several opponents of the ban who are running for reelection this year, including Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). None of those lawmakers changed their positions against the ban on Friday.

“Pro-choice candidates can easily defeat this. It’s deceptive. It puts government into the middle of a doctor-patient relationship, and people oppose that,” said Michelman. “It’s not the silver bullet the anti-choice side says it is.”