House Approves Parental Rights Bill and Ban On Partial-Birth Abortion; Senate to Vote in September

By NRLC Federal Legislative Office

WASHINGTON (August 5) - - The stage is set for Senate showdowns on two major abortion-related bills in September - - the Child Custody Protection Act and the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

The House of Representatives approved the Child Custody Protection Act on July 15, and on July 23 voted to override President Clinton's veto of the partial-birth abortion ban. A week later, the Senate began a five-week recess without having acted on either measure. This means that the Senate will deal with both measures after Labor Day.

Child Custody Protection Act
The Child Custody Protection Act (CCPA), sponsored by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fl.) and Senator Spencer Abraham (R-Mi.), would make it a federal crime to transport a minor across a state line to obtain an abortion, if this circumvents a state law requiring parental involvement in a minor's abortion decision. On July 15, the House Republican leadership brought the bill to the House floor under a procedure (called a "closed rule") that protected it from most amendments. However, opponents were permitted to offer one alternative proposal - - a so-called " motion to recommit" that would have rendered the bill virtually meaningless by making it apply only where "force or the threat of force" is used to take a minor across state lines for an abortion. This crippling motion failed, 158-269.

The House then passed the bill by a vote of 276-150. That tally was only eight votes short of the two-thirds majority that would be required to override a veto. (Both votes are shown on the chart on pages 30-31.)

During the House debate, opponents of the bill said that it would "force" girls to "go it alone" in crossing state lines for abortions, and would punish well-meaning non-parents, such as grandmothers, who were merely trying to help such girls. They also portrayed the bill as yet another in a long series of attacks on "reproductive rights."

"This piece of legislation does not concern strengthening families," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tx.). "It concerns advancing an agenda of the most fanatical people with reference to this question of invading personal choice."

But supporters of the bill argued that it would protect both the rights of parents and the interests of their minor daughters.

"Parents are required in schools across our nation to provide consent for our daughters for field trips or even to take an aspirin while in school custody," said Rep. Charles Canady (R- Fl.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee. "However, when it comes to our daughters being subjected to a possible life-threatening medical procedure, a stranger can take our daughters with no repercussions whatsoever. This is simply not acceptable."

"Ending human life is harmful to all involved, no matter what age they are," said Rep. Mike Pappas (R-NJ). "It is further worsened when an adult non-parent violates the law by taking a child across state lines to obtain an abortion. Contrary to what seems to be the emphasis of the opposition to this bill, parents are not generally evil."

The following day, July 16, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the identical bill on a vote of 10 to 6, after rejecting two hostile amendments to the bill. (See box, page 6.)

Pro-life forces had hoped that the Senate would take up the bill before adjourning for a month-long recess at the end of July. But Senate Democrats slowed up the Senate schedule because of disputes over health care policy and other issues, forcing postponement of the CCPA until after Labor Day.

In a July 14 statement sent to the House, the Clinton Administration said it "strongly opposes" the bill "in its current form," and that "the President's senior advisors would recommend that he veto it." The letter demanded numerous changes in the bill, including giving "close family members" such as " grandmothers, aunts, and . . . siblings" the same rights as parents, and immunizing anyone providing "counseling" or "medical services" from any penalty under the bill.

On July 18, the Republican Party used its weekly radio address to promote the CCPA. The address was delivered by Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen, the prime sponsor of the House bill.

"We must punish those who put our daughters in physical danger simply because they won't take responsibility for the pregnancies they create," she said, referring to the high percentage of teenage girls who are impregnated by adult men, who often pressure them to obtain secret abortions.

Partial-Birth Abortion
By a lopsided bipartisan majority of 296-132, the House on July 23 overrode President Clinton's veto of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (HR 1122). That was 10 votes more than the required two-thirds majority. The House had approved the bill by the same margin last October.

The measure would make it a federal crime to perform a partial-birth abortion, except to save the life of the mother. The President vetoed the bill last October. In 1996, when Clinton vetoed a similar bill, the House overrode the veto but the Senate sustained it.

When the Senate last voted on the bill, in May 1997, the vote was 64-36 - - three votes short of the two-thirds majority that will be necessary to override the veto.

"I think it's very close," pro-abortion Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle (SD) told reporters. "At this point, I think it's a close call, and I don't know how it's going to turn out." Daschle last year initially led the opposition to the ban, which he attempted to defeat by promotion of an alternative dubbed the " phony ban" by pro-life groups. Once Daschle's amendment was rejected, he reluctantly voted for the bill.

"It's long past time for 36 senators to stop defending the indefensible, brutal practice of partial-birth abortion," commented NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson. "It is appalling that any senator would vote to allow thousands of living babies to be mostly delivered and then stabbed through the head."

In a partial-birth abortion, an infant is mostly delivered alive before being killed by puncturing her skull and removing her brain. As abortion-industry spokespersons reluctantly acknowledged last year, this abortion method is used thousands of times annually on healthy babies of healthy mothers, usually in the fifth and sixth months of the babies' development.

"That little almost-born baby whose arms and legs are flailing, whose little chest harbors a beating heart, is a human being with human rights even if his or her human life can be snuffed out by the plunge of the abortionist's surgical scissor into the back of the tiny neck," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Il.), who closed the debate with a powerful discourse that drew heavy applause from his pro-life colleagues.

The American Medical Association endorsed the bill in a letter to Congress on May 19, 1997, calling partial-birth abortion "a procedure we all agree is not good medicine."

During the debate in the House, supporters of the ban made frequent references to the recent case of "Baby Phoenix," a girl born alive during an attempted abortion in Phoenix, Arizona, on June 30. Although hospitalized with a fractured skull and deep facial lacerations, the girl is expected to recover without brain damage.

Phoenix news media, citing a police report, said that the abortionist, Dr. John Biskind, had been attempting to perform a partial-birth abortion on a baby he believed to be at 5 1/2 months, but who was actually nearly full-term. However, in a July 28 radio interview Dr. Brian Finkel, another Phoenix abortionist, asserted that Biskind was attempting to perform a different type of abortion, in which the baby is dismembered and removed piece by piece from the womb. "He was trying to crush the skull," Finkel explained. (See story, page 16.)

For Further Information
For extensive further information on the issues discussed above, and other right-to-life matters under consideration in Congress, visit the NRLC Home Page on the World Wide Web. The address is www.nrlc.org. The NRLC home page contains a powerful search engine that can help you find specific information on the subjects in which you are interested.

To Assist NRLC's
Lobbying Efforts
Please send a copy of any letter received from a Member of Congress on the pro-life issues discussed above, or any newspaper report that discusses a lawmaker's position on such issues, to the NRLC Federal Legislative Office, 419 Seventh Street, N.W., Suite 500, Washington, D.C. 20004, fax (202) 347-3668, e-mail: Legfederal@aol.com.

Senate Judiciary Committee Vote on Child Custody Protection Act (S. 1645)

On July 16, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Child Custody Protection Act in a form identical to that passed by the House the previous day. The vote was 10 to 6.

The Senate bill is sponsored by Senator Spencer Abraham (R-Mi.).

Voting in favor of the bill were Republican senators Abraham (Mi.), Ashcroft (Mo.), DeWine (Ohio), Grassley (Iowa), Hatch (Utah), Kyl (Az.), Sessions (Al.), Thompson (Tn.), and Thurmond (SC), and Democratic Senator Herb Kohl (Wi.). Kohl's vote seemed especially significant, since he has almost always opposed pro- life legislation, even the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

Voting against the bill were Democratic senators Durbin (Il.), Leahy (Vt.), Feingold (Wi.), Feinstein (Ca.), Kennedy (Ma.), and Torricelli (NJ).

Senator Joseph Biden (D-De.) and Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) did not vote, either in person or by proxy.

Hoyer-Greenwood Phony Ban

During the July 23 House debate on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, some lawmakers who opposed the bill insisted that they should be given credit for supporting a different bill, which they claimed would ban "all types" of "late-term" abortions.

The bill in question, the "Late-Term Abortion Restriction Act" (HR 1032), is "a political sham that wouldn't prevent a single abortion," according to NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson. "This is a counterfeit bill that was manufactured to provide political cover for politicians who oppose the Partial- Birth Abortion Ban Act."

The bill is sponsored by pro-abortion Congressmen Steny Hoyer (D- Md.) and Jim Greenwood (R-Pa.). In a letter published in the July 30 Washington Post, these two lawmakers claim that their own bill "prohibits all abortions performed after fetal viability," with a seemingly narrow exception - - but, in reality, it "prohibits" not a single abortion, by the partial- birth method or any other method.

The great majority of partial-birth abortions are performed in the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy. Hoyer and Greenwood do not regard these as "late-term" abortions, even though these babies' lung development is, at most, a few weeks short of the " viability" point at which they could survive independently of their mothers (which is about 5 1/2 months).

Many other victims of partial-birth abortion are certainly past that "viability" point - - but whatever a baby's exact stage of lung development, she would find no protection in the Hoyer- Greenwood bill, for two reasons. First, the bill confers complete authority on the abortionist to determine what the criteria for "viability" will be and which individual babies meet that criteria. This is analogous to proposing a bill to ban " assault weapons" that explicitly empowers each firearms dealer to define "assault weapon." Practitioners of late abortions usually insist that "viability" does not occur until well into the seventh month, and under the Hoyer-Greenwood bill, it is legally impossible for any abortionist to ever be "wrong" in such a declaration.

Second, even during the final three months of pregnancy, the Hoyer-Greenwood bill would permit abortion (by any method) if "in the medical judgment of the attending physician [i.e., the abortionist], the abortion is necessary. . . to avert serious adverse health consequences to the woman."

At a March 12, 1997, press conference, Hoyer was asked (on tape) what he meant by this language. Hoyer responded, "Does it include mental health? Yes, it does." Hoyer went on to explain that this would apply in cases in which "it poses a psychological trauma to the woman to carry to term."

Thus, the Hoyer-Greenwood bill authorizes abortions of third- trimester, indisputably "viable" infants, whenever a single abortionist makes an unreviewable declaration that the abortion would preserve the mother's "mental health."