WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush signed, pro-lifers celebrated and the courts fought back.

On Nov. 5, Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003, declaring: “For years, a terrible form of violence has been directed against children who are inches from birth while the law looked the other way. Today, at last, the American people and our government have confronted the violence and come to the defense of the innocent child.”

After eight years of battle, an enthusiastic and emotional group of pro-life activists — which included New York Cardinal Edward Egan — gathered in the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington, D.C., for the signing of legislation similar to that which President Bill Clinton, Bush's immediate predecessor, twice vetoed.

The partial-birth abortion procedure, used only in the second half of pregnancy, is defined in the law as the partial delivery of a fetus from the womb “for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus” and then performing that act, killing the partially delivered fetus instead of delivering it alive.

“Partial-birth abortion exposed what abortion actually is and took it out of the realm of rhetoric and arguments,” said Wendy Wright of the pro-family group Concerned Women for America, who was at the bill signing. “While pro-abortionists argue ‘right to choose,’ we simply describe the procedure and the potential harm to the mother. This is a lesson that can be applied to other battles for the sanctity of life.”

Not everyone was delighted by the bill signing.

“Today, we saw the real George Bush,” said Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “If we could afford to, we would put that speech on television every day from now until the election … Any shred of doubt that this is the most anti-choice president this country has ever had has been convincingly erased.”

Bush had concluded his speech with these words: “The late Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey once said that when we look to the unborn child, the real issue is not when life begins but when love begins. This is the generous and merciful spirit of our country at its best. This spirit is reflected in the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, which I am now honored to sign into law. God bless.”

But not an hour passed after the bill's signing before a federal judge in Nebraska blocked the prohibition.

The suit was brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of Dr. LeRoy Carhart of Bellevue, Neb., and three other abortionists. Carhart's earlier fight against Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban led to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2000 Stenberg v. Carhart decision overturning the state law.

As the hearing began, U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf said the federal legislation had “serious vagueness problems” and expressed concern that there was no exception for a mother's health.

“It seems to me that the law is highly suspect, if not a per se violation of the Constitution,” the judge said.

“Partly born, premature infants may continue to die at the point of seven-inch scissors because of the federal judge's order,” said Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee.

At the bill's signing, the president had pledged his support in any court struggle in support of the ban.

Judges in California and New York soon followed the Nebraska court's lead.

Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said Nov. 9, “With these three temporary restraining orders, the majority of abortion providers in the nation can continue to provide safe abortion care to their patients without fear of prosecution.”

Supporters of the partial-birth-abortion ban were disappointed but not shocked by the judicial action.

“I'm not surprised by the quick moves to the courts, nor by the quick decisions by the judges,” said Richard Garnett, a professor at the University of Notre Dame law school. “Nor am I surprised by the fact that the judges [seemed to] key in on the ‘health of the mother’ issue. As I understand it — for better or worse — that is the par-tial-birth abortion ban's greatest vulnerability, under current law. That said, it is not entirely clear to me that, in Stenberg, the five-justice majority set down the ‘health’ exception as an absolute requirement for any partial-birth-abortion ban. I think [for example] that Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor could — if she wanted to — vote to uphold the present law, notwithstanding her vote in Stenberg.”

“It's no surprise that abortion advocates rushed to their favorite turf — the courts,” said Cathleen Ruse, pro-life spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. (Ruse is the new married name of Register columnist Cathleen Cleaver.) “The fact that the district court in Nebraska held a hearing on the question of enjoining the law before it was made law gives some indication of the uphill battle we always face with pro-life laws in federal courts today.”

She said the partial-birth abortion fight could be scored as a pro-life victory regardless of what the courts ultimately decide.

“The effort to ban partial-birth abortion has achieved victories no court can take away,” she said. “It has moved opinion in this country away from abortion as Americans were faced with the brutal reality of abortion and did not like what they saw. It has helped to educate the American people about how radical Roe v. Wade really is. And it is a clear expression of the desire of the people — through their elected representatives — to do what is in their power to end this barbaric practice.”

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, was also at the signing.

The pro-life committee and the Knights of Columbus published full-page ads in USA Today and Roll Call newspapers Nov. 5 thanking Bush and “members of Congress on both sides of the aisle” for approving the ban. “[T]oday our nation is one step closer to a culture of life,” the ads said.

“We believe that this law will ultimately be reviewed by the Supreme Court, where five justices in 2000 said Roe v. Wade guarantees the right to perform partial-birth abortions at will,” the National Right to Life Committee's Johnson said. “We can only hope that by the time this law reaches the Supreme Court, there will be at least a one-vote shift away from that extreme and inhumane position.”

Though the partial-birth-abortion battle is not over, pro-lifers are working on other battles simultaneously — re-engerized by Congress's first successful limitation on an abortion procedure.

Kathryn Jean Lopez is the editor of National Review Online.

(Catholic News Service contributed to this story.)