WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday handed a long-awaited victory to the antiabortion movement, giving congressional approval to a bill that would impose the first federal ban on an abortion procedure in 30 years.
The Senate voted 64 to 34 for a bill that prohibits a controversial procedure that critics call "partial-birth" abortion, sending the measure to President Bush for his promised signature.
But the victory may be short-lived. The issue will soon go to the courts, where abortion-rights advocates are poised to challenge the constitutionality of the measure as soon as Bush signs it into law. Critics of the ban said they were confident the measure would be struck down because it did not include an exception for cases in which a woman's health is at risk if the procedure was not used.
"For the first time in history, Congress is banning a medical procedure that is considered medically necessary by physicians," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who led the fight against the bill. "This is a radical, radical thing that is about to happen."
Seventeen Democrats joined 47 Republicans in voting for the bill. Voting against it were three Republicans, 30 Democrats and one independent.
Proponents of the bill said it was carefully crafted to avoid the constitutional pitfalls of a Nebraska law, designed to ban the same procedure that the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to overturn in 2000. But even some antiabortion activists said it might take a change in the Supreme Court lineup -- or a conversion by a sitting justice -- for the bill to be upheld.
"We hope that by the time this bill gets to the Supreme Court, there will be a shift from the extreme and inhumane position" expressed in the 2000 opinion, said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee.
Although congressional action may not be the final word on the issue, the Senate vote was applauded as a political triumph by antiabortion activists, who have made the measure a crucial test of their strength in Congress. It is the clearest evidence to date of the difference it makes to antiabortion forces to have Republicans in control of both Congress and the White House. Similar legislation was passed in both 1996 and 1997, but was vetoed each time by President Clinton.
With his signature on the bill, Bush will make good on a promise to a core Republican constituency just as he heads into his 2004 reelection campaign.
