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House Votes To Outlaw ‘Partial-Birth Abortions’ But Clinton Is Likely To Veto The Ban Again

John E. Yang Washington Post

The House voted overwhelmingly Thursday to outlaw an increasingly controversial abortion procedure, renewing a fight with President Clinton that produced a veto of an identical measure last year.

The ban on what abortion opponents call “partial-birth abortions” was approved 295-136, a bigger margin than in last year’s vote and enough to override another likely veto.

The vote gave the House Republican leadership a much-needed victory as Congress heads home for a two-week Easter recess. The action also gave the bill momentum in the Senate, where it will be considered after the recess.

The question is whether GOP gains in the Senate last November will produce a veto-proof Senate majority for the ban.

“Right now, we probably don’t have the votes to override a veto, but it’s getting closer,” Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., told reporters.

Last year, the House voted to overturn Clinton’s veto, but Senate leaders could not muster the necessary two-thirds majority.

The measure would outlaw what it calls “partial-birth abortions,” the term anti-abortion forces have given a procedure in which a fetus is pulled out of the birth canal, feet first. The surgeon then punctures the back of the fetus’s head and removes the brain, permitting the skull to be partially collapsed and brought through the cervix, the narrowest part of the birth canal.

The bill would subject doctors who perform the procedure to fines and up to two years in prison. In addition, it would allow the father of the fetus and, if the woman is younger than 18, the woman’s parents to sue the doctor. The only exception is if no other procedure would save the woman’s life.

The administration said Thursday that Clinton will veto the measure again if it does not include a broader exception to protect the woman’s health, a term the Supreme Court has held includes “all factors - physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the woman’s age -relevant to the well-being of the patient.”