SENATE PASSES PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION BAN 63-34, 10/21/99

Washington - The Senate Thursday again approved ban partial birth abortions but fell at least two votes shy of the crucial 67 votes needed to overturn President Clinton's promised veto.

Since 1995, both the House and Senate have repeatedly voted to ban this gruesome abortion procedure, which pro-life advocates rightly compare to infanticide. But the Senate has not been able to override Clinton's veto.

The vote was 63-34, with three senators absent. If those three had voted the same way they had in the past, the ban would have picked up one supporter since the 1998 Congressional elections, but would still be two votes short of the 67 needed to override the veto.

Fourteen Democrats joined 49 Republicans in backing the ban. Three Republicans joined 31 Democrats in opposing it.

The White House has said Clinton would veto it again. ``It has been our position from the beginning that if the bill comes down in this form, we will veto it as we have in the past,'' Clinton spokesman Joe Lockhart said.

Proponents of a ban said partial-birth abortions are never medically necessary, although their legislation does include an exemption to save a woman's life.

``I have hundreds of letters from obstetricians. This is never, never medically necessary,'' said Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum, the lead sponsor of the ban.

During the debate, Santorum and his allies have shown medical charts and drawings of the partial-birth abortion. They show an unborn child being partly extracted from the womb feet first, scissors inserted in the skull and the brain removed to collapse the head before the unborn child is killed.

``It is barbaric. It is killing. It is cruel,'' said Illinois Republican Peter Fitzgerald. ``It is inhumane.''

While acknowledging there are no reliable independent numbers, Santorum cited estimates that partial-birth abortions are used about 5,000 times a year in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.

Santorum amended his bill in an attempt to provide a clearer definition of partial-birth abortion. His new definition said the procedure is used when an ``intact living fetus'' is delivered ''partially outside of the mother.''

Santorum said he hoped the more specific language would satisfy courts, which have struck down ``partial birth'' bans in about 20 states as unconstitutional.

Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee said that if the Senate does not get the few extra votes needed to override the veto ``thousands of babies will continue to be pulled feet-first from the womb while alive, and then brutally killed.''

Pro-life Republican Senators Connie Mack of Florida and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire - who both voted yes in last year's override attempt - were absent. So was pro-abortion Repubilcan Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island, who voted no last year.

Santorum described the debate as a moral attack on a brutal medical procedure that involves partially delivering a live fetus before emptying its skull and killing it.

``This is not an attempt to change or overturn Roe vs. Wade,'' he said. ``At least we should be able to draw the line that when a child is in the process of being born, it's too late to have an abortion.''

The partial-birth abortion issue also has caused pro-abortion Democrats some political discomfort.

Senator Harkin (D-IA) was attacked in television commercials over the issue in 1996, and dropped sharply in the polls before recovering. More recently, the Senate's Democratic leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, and Sen. Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, got behind the pro-life measure before their re-elections in 1998.

During debate Thursday, another Democrat suggested he, too, might support the bill.

Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., an abortion supporter, told Santorum he was troubled by the abortion procedure and ``keeping an open mind'' on his vote, after opposing the ban the last time around. Kerrey is among the senators up for re-election next year. In the end, however, Kerrey stuck with his 'no' vote. Below is the roll call vote.

                               YEAS---63
 
    Abraham                  Dorgan                   Lugar
    Allard                   Enzi                     McCain
    Ashcroft                 Fitzgerald               McConnell
    Bayh                     Frist                    Moynihan
    Bennett                  Gorton                   Murkowski
    Biden                    Gramm                    Nickles
    Bond                     Grams                    Reid
    Breaux                   Grassley                 Roberts
    Brownback                Hagel                    Roth
    Bunning                  Hatch                    Santorum
    Burns                    Helms                    Sessions
    Byrd                     Hollings                 Shelby
    Campbell                 Hutchinson               Smith (NH)
    Cochran                  Hutchison                Smith (OR)
    Conrad                   Inhofe                   Specter
    Coverdell                Johnson                  Stevens
    Craig                    Kyl                      Thomas
    Crapo                    Landrieu                 Thompson
    Daschle                  Leahy                    Thurmond
    DeWine                   Lincoln                  Voinovich
    Domenici                 Lott                     Warner
 
                               NAYS---34
 
    Akaka                    Graham                   Murray
    Baucus                   Harkin                   Reed
    Bingaman                 Inouye                   Robb
    Boxer                    Jeffords                 Rockefeller
    Bryan                    Kennedy                  Sarbanes
    Cleland                  Kerrey                   Schumer
    Collins                  Kerry                    Snowe
    Dodd                     Kohl                     Torricelli
    Durbin                   Lautenberg               Wellstone
    Edwards                  Levin                    Wyden
    Feingold                 Lieberman                
    Feinstein                Mikulski                 
 
                               NOT VOTING---3
 
    Chafee                   Gregg                    Mack