Senate passes bill to criminalize help in minors' abortions

WASHINGTON -- Acting to further chip away at abortion rights ahead of the fall congressional elections, Senate Republicans yesterday pushed through legislation making it a federal crime to evade parental consent laws by taking minors across state lines for abortions.

The 65-to-34 Senate vote, which came just a week after a controversial bill on stem cell research divided several leading Republicans from their antiabortion base, gave the party another plank for its ``values" agenda.

Building on parental consent requirements in many states, the vote marked another victory in the drive by abortion opponents to limit access to the procedure with small measures that stop short of an all-out ban.

``Americans have been saying: `Can't we at least find some reasonable middle ground? Can't we find some ground to at least make some reasonable restrictions on abortion?' " said Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, who sponsored the Senate bill. ``This is a reasonable piece of legislation."

The bill must still be reconciled with a slightly different House measure passed last year. Republicans in both chambers said yesterday they were confident that would be done before Congress recesses for the fall elections.

In a statement, President Bush said he would sign the legislation.

There are no figures on the number of minors who cross state lines to avoid telling their parents that they are getting abortions. But the issue of parental notification has long been controversial.

About 35 states require minors to either notify or get permission from their parents before getting abortions.

Abortion rights activists and their mostly Democratic allies on Capitol Hill have fought for nearly a decade to head off the restriction on out-of-state travel.

``We've brought up a bill that does absolutely nothing to protect girls," said Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, who led the opposition to the bill.

In the end, 14 Democrats joined 51 Republicans in voting for the bill. Four Republicans opposed it.

The Senate vote capped a lengthy campaign to crack down on what abortion opponents charged was a nefarious practice of evading state parental consent requirements.

The House first passed a bill addressing the issue in 1998, but Democrats managed to stop it in the Senate. Since then, Republicans have pushed a series of other restrictions and requirements on women and teens seeking abortions.

Republicans are under pressure to hold on to their Senate and House majorities in November's elections, and Democrats have accused them of simply using the abortion bill as a means of playing to the GOP's conservative base.

Even as the Senate passed the measure, however, advocates for abortion rights promised to use the bill to rally their own supporters in November.