How pro-life is gop, Bush? (Insider Report).

"Will Congress really ban partial-birth abortion," asked American Life League (ALL) president Judie Brown in a November 8th press statement, "or just give prolifers lip service by once again passing a meaningless regulation containing an erroneous loophole that renders the whole package moot?"

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who takes over as majority leader in the new Congress, is promising to shepherd a partial-birth abortion ban to President Bush's desk, Mrs. Brown noted. "But if he merely plans to reintroduce previous legislation," the pro-life leader said, "he will be guiding a bill that, in fact, only regulates perhaps the most grisly surgical act of murder in the history of a once civilized nation."

ALL and other pro-life groups are warning that the bill specifically permits such partial-birth abortions claimed "necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself."

That exception, said the ALL leader, is totally "bogus." In addition to expert medical opinions challenging the partial-birth exceptions clause, Brown provided a list of nearly 500 physicians who had signed the following declaration: "I agree that there is never a situation in the law or in the ethical practice of medicine where a preborn child's life need be intentionally destroyed by procured abortion for ...