After three days and eight hours of debate on abortion and the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, the Senate approved, 94-0, a procedural motion to go to conference with the House on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban (S. 3) on September 17.
The Senate approved S. 3 on March 13 (see The Source, 3/14/03). Sponsored by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), the measure would prohibit a specific abortion procedure performed during the second and third trimesters. S. 3 would make an exception if the life of the pregnant woman is endangered by carrying the pregnancy to term. Physicians who violate the ban would be subject to two years’ imprisonment and/or fines. The bill also contains a number of congressional findings that state “partial-birth abortion is never necessary to preserve the health of a woman, poses serious risks to a woman’s health, and lies outside the standard of medical care.”
Congress considered similar bans during the 104th, 105th, and 106th Congresses. Twice the bans were vetoed by President Clinton. In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Nebraska law that would have banned “partial-birth abortions” because the law did not include a health exception and because the bill placed an undue burden on a woman’s right to choose due to a broadly worded definition. Last year, the House approved a ban; however, the Senate did not consider the measure (see The Source, 7/26/02).
During consideration of the bill in March, the Senate approved, 52-46, an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) that expresses the sense of the Senate that the decision of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade was appropriate and secures an important constitutional right. The amendment also says that the ruling should not be overturned. On June 4, the House approved its version of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban (H.R. 760) without the language supporting the Roe v. Wade decision (see The Source, 6/6/03).
The procedural motion in the Senate, which is common before a conference with the House, notes that the two chambers are sending differing bills to the conference. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) requested that the Senate debate the motion in order to put the Senate “on record” that it supports the decision in Roe v. Wade. “I wasn’t elected to be God. I am a Senator. I was elected to respect you and respect your freedom and to pass laws that balance your rights with other rights. Roe v. Wade was that type of decision. It is very important that it not be overturned. It is very important that it be part of this law that is in front of us because the law that is in front of us makes an exception for the health of a woman.”
During the debate, Sen. Santorum was the most vocal abortion opponent, but in the end, he asked his colleagues to vote for the motion so that the bill could go to conference. “This is a procedural motion. I never, in my 9 years, recall that we ever had a debate about what is strictly a procedural motion to go to conference. But some point is trying to be made, which, frankly, escapes me, that somehow if we vote for the disagreement, somehow we are arguing that we are for the Senate version versus the House version. What we are for is a bill that will be passed by both Chambers and signed by the President, and that will be the original contents of S. 3, which I suspect will pass here and pass, hopefully, by a very large margin.”
Members of the conference committee are expected to strip the Roe v. Wade language from the bill and complete the conference in October. President Bush has said that he will sign the Partial Birth Abortion Ban into law.
