CONGRESS WILL ACT SOON ON THE PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN ACT OF 2002.(Brief Article)

On June 19, Congressman Steve Chabot (R-Oh.) introduced the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2002 (H.R. 4965). There was a bipartisan group of initial cosponsors: James Barcia (D-Mi.), Henry Hyde (R-Il.), Ralph Hall (D-Tx.), Chris Smith (R-NJ), James Oberstar (D-Mn.), Sue Myrick (R-NC), Bart Stupak (D-Mi.), Melissa Hart (R-Pa.), Alan Mollohan (D-WV), Rob Portman (R-Oh.), and Nick Rahall (D-WV), and by NRL News deadline there were nearly 100 cosponsors. (The full text of the bill can be found on the web at http://thomas.loc.gov.)

Congress has twice approved national bans on partial-birth abortion--but neither became law, because they were successfully vetoed by Bill Clinton in 1996 and 1997. (This fact should be contemplated by those who refused to vote in the 1992 and 1996 elections or voted for third-party candidates because they deemed the Republican candidates "not pro-life enough.")

Twenty-seven states have also passed bans on partial-birth abortions. Many of these state laws were challenged in federal court. Of these challenges, the Nebraska case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down the law in the Stenberg v. Carhart decision in June 2000. Nebraska's bill to ban partial-birth abortions was similar to the bills previously passed by Congress.

The five-justice majority in Stenberg v. Carhart (1) decided that Nebraska's definition of a partial-birth abortion was broad enough to include certain dismemberment procedures ("D&Es") in its ban; (2) claimed "that significant medical authority supports the proposition that in some circumstances, [partial-birth abortion] would be the safest procedure"; and (3) concluded that the Nebraska law placed an "undue burden" on women seeking abortions because it failed to allow Dr. LeRoy Carhart, the abortionist instigating the case, to perform a partial-birth abortion whenever he believed that it was the method least likely to cause side effects during a late abortion.

(Contrary to what is often reported, the majority made it clear that Carhart must be allowed to use the method on perfectly healthy women, not merely when he believed that a woman had a "health" problem.)

The majority's conclusions relied heavily on findings of fact made by the federal district court, which in turn gave undue weight to the assertions of Carhart.

In response, Congressman Chabot's new bill contains two significant changes. First, it refines the definition of the term "partial-birth abortion," as described below. Second, it distills the results of extensive hearings on this issue during previous congresses into a set of congressional findings. Unlike the findings of the federal district court, these findings are based on a much more balanced and broader range of expert testimonies. The congressional hearings, as summarized in the bill's findings, support conclusions opposite to the district court's.