Law bans late-term abortion procedure

WASHINGTON -- Amid the loud and enthusiastic cheers of conservatives, President Bush signed into law yesterday the nation's first federal ban on an abortion. Less than an hour later, a federal judge in Nebraska moved to restrict its application.

"For years, a terrible form of violence has been directed against children who are inches from birth, while the law looked away," Bush told an audience of about 400 abortion opponents gathered at the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington. "Today, at last, the American people and our government have confronted the violence and come to the defense of the innocent child."

In Nebraska, where a previous law banning the procedure had been overturned, a federal judge issued a limited restraining order that would exempt four doctors and others in their practices from the provisions of the new federal law. They were seeking a nationwide ban on enforcement. Other cases in New York and California hold out the prospect that the ban might yet be overturned.

Regardless of the outcome of those legal battles, Bush's signing of the ban is certain to energize religious conservatives, an important Republican constituency, as next year's election draws near. Twice before, abortion opponents had successfully lobbied Congress to pass a ban on the "partial-birth" procedure. Both times the legislation was vetoed by President Clinton.

Bush, however, had promised to sign the legislation if Congress passed it again. Yesterday, after passage by a large majority of both houses, Bush sat at a simple wooden table in an auditorium at the Reagan building and signed the bill into law, giving abortion opponents a major, if possibly temporary, victory. President Reagan, a strong opponent of abortion rights, was never able to pass antiabortion legislation.

"It's hallelujah day," said Linda Cochrane, executive director of the Hopeline Pregnancy Resource Center in Fairfield County, Conn.

"We are thrilled that no more babies have to die this way," said Gail Tierney, executive director of the Rockville Pregnancy Center in Maryland.

Arguing that the legislation violates a woman's right to privacy, abortion-rights advocates had filed a trio of lawsuits even before yesterday's signing. Each sought to obtain injunctions to prevent the law from going into effect nationwide.

After the Nebraska judge, Richard G. Kopf, barred the Justice Department from enforcing the new law against the four doctors who challenged it, the department made clear that it would enforce the law elsewhere if other courts do not block it.

The department's legal brief in the Nebraska court had argued that Kopf should not interfere with the ability of two other federal courts to "decide whether enforcement of the act should be enjoined."

Kopf's order noted that the US Supreme Court in 2000 had struck down a "very similar law" in Nebraska because it had no exception to protect the health of pregnant women. The law Bush signed yesterday also has no exception for the health of women who might undergo the procedure. The new law does have an exception for the life of the mother, and advocates say its language is tailored to survive court challenge.

Kopf will confer with lawyers on Wednesday to schedule a hearing on a preliminary injunction, a more permanent order than the one issued yesterday.

Opponents of the procedure succeeded in framing the debate on their terms, coining the label "partial-birth abortion" to graphically describe an operation now opposed by 70 percent of the public, according to a poll earlier this year.

The new law makes it a crime, with a potential two-year prison sentence and large fines, for a doctor to deliberately kill "a living fetus" that has been partially removed from a woman's body.

"The best case against partial-birth abortion is a simple description of what happens and to whom it happens," Bush said. "It involves the partial delivery of a live boy or girl, and a sudden, violent end to that life."

Congress' adoption of the ban reflected public sentiment. Even in the Senate, more evenly divided than the conservative-dominated House of Representatives, the bill banning the procedure passed by a vote of 64 to 34.

Underscoring the broad opposition to the procedure, a Democratic congressman, Representative James L. Oberstar of Minnesota, joined nine other members of Congress yesterday in standing behind Bush when he signed the ban.

Abortion-rights advocates say the bill Bush signed was written in a way that covers more than the so-called partial-birth abortion and could open the door to more sweeping restrictions.

"President Bush turned a blind eye to the US Constitution, Supreme Court precedent, and women's health by signing into law an unconstitutional ban on abortion, deceptively called a partial-birth abortion ban," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Bush, strongly supported by religious conservatives, will see his stock among them rise even higher for succeeding where other Republicans failed, though officials in his reelection campaign were quick to insist that the president did not sign the so-called partial-birth ban for political reasons.

"Every person, however frail or vulnerable, has a place and a purpose in this world," Bush said. "Every person has a special dignity. This right to life cannot be granted or denied by government, because it does not come from government. It comes from the creator of life."