WASHINGTON — For the third time in four years, the Senate has voted to ban partial-birth abortions. This time however, abortion-rights supporters passed a resolution affirming the “constitutional right” to abort a child as recognized by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade.

The ban on partial-birth abortions passed 63–34. President Clinton has vowed to veto the bill as he has all previous bans on the procedure.

Under the procedure, a baby is partially delivered and then has her skull punctured and brains vacuumed out while her head is still inside her mother.

“To allow this to continue unchecked violates every principle of human rights and decency this country has always stood for,” said Cardinal William Keeler, archbishop of Baltimore. “So unique and brutal is this procedure that the majority of those Americans who are pro-life and those who describe themselves as pro-choice agree that it ought to be banned.”

“This crosses the line, this is infanticide,” said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa. “Surely the Senate can draw the line here.”

A presidential veto will likely be upheld as pro-lifers will remain two votes shy of a two-thirds vote necessary to overturn, a gain of one vote from last year. Two pro-life senators were absent from the vote on Oct. 21.

“If these 34 senators, Clinton and Gore get their way, thousands of babies will continue to be pulled feet-first from the womb while alive, and then brutally killed,” said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee.

For the first time, the Senate voted 51–47 to approve a nonbinding resolution affirming the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which opened the door to the deaths of more than 36 million unborn children.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who authored the amendment, told his fellow senators to be proud of advocating abortion. “Don't be afraid of this issue,” said Harkin, who nearly lost his Senate seat in 1996 because of his militant support of all forms of abortion.

Only two Democrats voted against the Harkin Amendment, Sens. John Breaux of Louisiana and Harry Reid of Nevada.

Eight Republicans agreed to the Harkin's affirmation of Roe. They were Sens. John Chafee, Rhode Island (who died Oct. 24 of heart failure); Ben Night-horse Campbell, Colorado; Susan Collins, Maine; James Jeffords, Vermont; Olympia Snowe, Maine; Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania; Ted Stevens, Alaska; and John Warner, Virginia.

Pro-lifers contended that the slim-majority vote to affirm Roe was no large victory for abortion advocates.

“I'm surprised they did as well as they did,” Santorum said. Observed Johnson: “The Harkin Amendment has no legal effect — it simply expressed the position of a bare majority of 51 senators, which is hardly a ringing endorsement of legal abortion on demand. The Harkin Amendment will not likely pass House and Senate conference committee action on the bill.”

Extremists?

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., a strident defender of abortions, looks forward to raising the issue of the abortion votes during the 2000 elections.

“This is going to be an absolutely huge issue next year,” said Boxer. “Now we see the extremists in the United States Senate.”

Proponents of the partial-birth abortion procedure believed that the Senate's ban was a direct assault on Roe. “This is just another attempt to undermine that decision,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

Santorum, on the other hand, noted the failure of some partial-birth abortion supporters to address directly the issue of whether the procedure should remain legally protected.

“Because on its own merits, they have nothing to stand on,” Santorum said. “It's not medically necessary, never medically advisable and is much more dangerous to the woman. It borders on infanticide.”

Santorum told the Register that this specific abortion procedure is not respected in the medical community. “It's not done in hospitals, not taught in medical school or found in medical literature,” he said. “It's a barbaric act done just in abortion clinics.”

On the Senate floor, Santorum mentioned that twice in 1996 his pregnant wife rejected a late-term abortion even though they knew their son had a defect and would die shortly he left his mother's womb.

“My son, who died, was not perfect in the eyes of the world,” said Santorum, a Catholic father of six. “But he was perfect to me. He was perfect to my wife. And, most importantly, he was perfect in God's eyes.”

‘My son, who died, was not perfect in the eyes of the world,’ said Sen. Santorum, a Catholic father of six. ‘But he was perfect to me. He was perfect to my wife. And, most importantly, he was perfect in God's eyes.’

Shift in Opinion

Public opinion appears to be shifting away from permitting an abortion at any time during the baby's stay inside her mother's womb.

A May 1999 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found that 58% of American believe either that abortion should be “illegal in all circumstances” or “legal only in a few circumstances.”

A poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates for the pro-abortion Center for Gender Equality shows that woman are becoming more pro-life as well. It found that 70% of American women favor “more restrictions” on abortion and that 53% believe that abortion should be legal (at most) in cases of rape, incest, or to save the mother's life.

“Some of the 51 senators who voted to endorse Roe may find that the vote returns to haunt them politically,” said National Right to Life's Johnson.