By David Crary
Associated Press

October 29, 2003

On Capitol Hill, in the Florida statehouse, at the Supreme Court, even in the boardroom of the YWCA, the self-proclaimed right-to-life movement and its conservative allies are on a winning streak that is deeply troubling to abortion-rights activists.

The latest victories include final congressional approval of a bill banning a disputed late-term abortion procedure and Florida lawmakers' vote empowering Gov. Jeb Bush to order resumed feeding of a woman who has been in a vegetative state since 1990.

"A monumental day for the sanctity of human life," declared the conservative Family Research Council after the Oct. 21 votes in Washington and Tallahassee, Fla.

However, Dr. David Grimes, a physician who formerly headed the abortion surveillance division of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called it "a very sad day."

"Here we have a governor of Florida interfering with a family's choice, and Congress interfering with a woman's right to choose," Grimes said. "I thought this administration's role was to get government off people's backs."

Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said people need to realize "it's not just a fight about abortion. It extends far beyond, to family planning and other personal, private decisions."

The vote in Congress to ban what critics call partial-birth abortion capped a campaign waged by anti-abortion groups since 1995. Many of those same groups became intensely engaged in the battle to prevent medical staff from halting the feeding of Terri Schiavo at the request of her husband.

A hospital began rehydrating the brain-damaged woman last week, and a judge rebuffed a request by the husband, Michael Schiavo, to overturn Bush's order. Terri Schiavo's parents have supported the state's intervention.

The votes in Washington and Florida followed some other recent successes for anti-abortion and conservative groups. Among them:

The board of the YWCA this month fired feminist Patricia Ireland, an abortion-rights supporter, as its chief executive. Conservative groups had been campaigning against her since she was appointed six months ago.

The U.S. Supreme Court this month refused to hear an appeal--backed by abortion-rights activists--on behalf of a drug-addicted South Carolina mother who was imprisoned for killing her stillborn child through the use of crack cocaine. Lawyers for Regina McKnight, who acknowledged taking drugs while pregnant, said no other woman has been convicted of homicide after suffering a stillbirth.

Abortion-rights groups generally oppose efforts to increase fetal rights out of fear that new laws might eventually be used to bar abortions. One fetal-rights bill--the Unborn Victims of Violence Act--has been introduced in Congress. It's expected to become one of the next priorities for anti-abortion activists.

The bill would make murder or injury of an unborn child a separate offense during the commission of certain existing federal crimes. Though it exempts abortion, abortion-rights groups nonetheless are alarmed that Congress might, for the first time, recognize a fetus as independent of the expectant mother.

Abortion-rights groups anticipated passage of the late-term abortion ban and plan a legal challenge. They say the bill is flawed because it would criminalize an overly broad range of procedures and does not make an exception to protect a mother's health.

Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, said the congressional vote was "another step in the plan to ban all abortions." She urged abortion-rights supporters to mobilize for a planned mass march in Washington in April.

Anti-abortion groups viewed the vote to ban so-called partial-birth abortion as a modest first step toward their goal of overturning the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision establishing a woman's right to have an abortion.

Ed Szymkowiak of the American Life League said his group, as a next step, would like to see a ban on all third-trimester abortions, with no exceptions made for rape or incest.

"The debate [on the partial-birth bill] has helped educate people on the horrors of abortion, but it only bans one procedure," Szymkowiak said. "It doesn't mean they can't kill a child with another procedure."


Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune