House Set to Approve Abortion Bill

House Set to Approve Abortion Bill

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

(04-27) 11:53 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

It would be illegal to dodge parental-notice laws by taking minors across state lines for abortions under legislation the House debated Wednesday, the latest congressional effort to chip away at abortions after Republican gains in last November's elections.

Nearing a vote, Democrats accused Republicans of distorting their efforts to soften the measure. The Democrats objected to descriptions of their amendments as protections for "sexual predators." The Republicans said the problem was with the proposals.

The bill, if passed by both the House and Senate and signed by the president, would represent the fifth measure since President Bush took office in 2001 aimed a reducing the number of abortions.

In addition, Senate abortion opponents also prevailed last month in preventing Democrats from restricting the rights of abortion clinic protesters in bankruptcy court.

The House has passed similar bills to the interstate abortion measure three times since 1998, but they have all died in the Senate. With a larger Republican majority after last fall's election, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has put it high on his agenda this year.

Reflecting rising public support for requiring parents' involvement in their pregnant daughters' decisions, the bill would impose fines, jail time or both on adults and doctors involved in most cases where minors were taken out of state to get abortions.

Democrats tried to amend the measure by exempting adult siblings and grandparents from prosecution.

The author of the Judiciary Committee's report on the bill, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., defended its language criticizing such exemptions, saying they would not specifically exclude child molesters.

"Perhaps these amendments were not properly drafted by the authors when they were submitted in the committee," Sensenbrenner told the House. "That's not the fault of the majority, that's the fault of the people who drafted the amendment."

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., called the report by Sensenbrenner's committee "a rape of the rules of this house."

"Would it be fair for an official report of this committee to call this entire bill the 'Rapists and Sexual Predators Right to Sue Act?'" Nadler asked rhetorically.

Last year, Congress made it a separate crime to harm a fetus during an assault on a pregnant woman and also decided to deny federal funds to state and local agencies that act against health care providers and insurers because they don't provide or cover abortions.

In 2003 it outlawed what critics call partial birth abortions, generally carried out in the second or third trimester, in which a fetus is partially delivered before being aborted. A year earlier lawmakers amended the legal definitions for person, human being, child and individual to include any fetus that survives an abortion procedure.

Supporters of the interstate abortion bill say it would be worthwhile if it prevented a single abortion. More than 30 states have parental notification or consent laws.

Opponents say any gains it might make would be dwarfed by health, abuse and legal problems that pregnant girls and their well-meaning confidants might suffer.

Bebe J. Anderson, a lawyer at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said it would produce "a confusing maze of requirements ... designed to isolate some teens and leave others with no safe options.".

"No matter how few people it affects, it's an important bill on the principles," said Frist, a Tennessee Republican who is looking at seeking his party's presidential nomination in 2008.

___

The bill is H.R. 748