 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
House okays fetal protection bill
©New York Times © St. Petersburg Times, published April 27, 2001 WASHINGTON -- With a new ally in the White House, the House on Thursday approved a bill that would establish criminal penalties for harming a human fetus during the commission of a federal offense against a woman. The measure, sponsored by Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., renewed the emotional debate over when life begins and sparked the year's first legislative confrontation in the House between advocates and opponents of abortion rights. Its supporters called it an anti-violence measure designed to ensure that criminals who attack a pregnant woman are charged with murder or manslaughter if the woman survives but her "unborn child" perishes. While the bill says specifically that it does not apply to abortion, opponents said the legislation was a thinly disguised effort to undermine abortion rights by granting a new legal protection to a fetus. The bill passed 252-172, almost the same vote as last session, when it died in the Senate in the face of a veto threat by President Clinton. Fifty-three Democrats, 198 Republicans and one independent supported the measure on Thursday. Twenty-one Republicans, 150 Democrats and one independent opposed it. Of the 15 Republicans in Florida's congressional delegation, Rep. Mark Foley of West Palm Beach was the only one to vote against the measure. Seven of the delegation's Democrats also opposed the measure; Carrie Meek of Miami did not vote. It now moves to the Senate, where party leaders seemed disinclined to act on it any time soon. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, the House majority whip, argued that "under current law when an unborn victim is murdered in our society no one has died." He called that situation an "awful and unconscionable oversight." Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y., said that the definition of the fetus in the bill was "so broad it would cover three cells." She said, "Make no mistake, this is an attack on a woman's right to choose, and we know clearly and squarely where the Bush administration stands." The bill, called the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act," is one of a series of measures put forward by abortion opponents in recent years that sidestep a direct confrontation over the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision on abortion rights. The abortion opponents have instead focused on a series of incremental steps that they believe will resonate with voters and draw over some lawmakers who would oppose overturning Roe vs. Wade. The Bush White House in a statement this week said it backed the measure because "the administration supports protection for unborn children." Abortion rights supporters put up their own counter measure on Thursday called the "Motherhood Protection Act" to show their own commitment to fighting violence against pregnant women. That proposal, sponsored by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., would have toughened penalties for attacks on a pregnant women that compromised a pregnancy without elevating the status of a fetus. It was defeated 196-229. The House action tossed the battle over the bill into the Senate. Even the supporters of the measure acknowledged that it faces a high hurdle there, and the Senate's Republican leaders showed no signs of putting it on the agenda any time soon. "We will watch with great interest whether this can survive the rocks and shoals of the other body," said Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., calling the measure a "supreme test" of the Senate's Republican leadership. On the other side of the issue, Maloney said, "I hope to God it is stopped in the Senate." Bush has already shown that he can make a difference on volatile, abortion-related issues. He announced that he would reimpose a ban on federal aid to international organizations that perform or "actively promote" abortion as a method of family planning. He named as his attorney general the staunchly conservative John Ashcroft. And the administration is reviewing policy on federal financing for research involving embryonic stem cells. House Republicans and their conservative supporters have an array of other bills waiting in the wings. They include restrictions on anyone except a parent from transporting a minor across state lines for an abortion, limitations on who can administer an abortion pill approved by the Clinton administration, and a ban on a method of abortion which its critics call "partial birth abortion." That last measure however has been delayed as its proponents try to figure out how to respond to a recent Supreme Court ruling striking down a similar state law. Under the bill passed on Thursday, a person who kills or injures a fetus in the course of committing any of 68 federal crimes could be convicted of a separate offense against the fetus, defined as "a member of the species Homo sapiens at any stage of development in the womb." The penalties would be the same as the punishment that could have been imposed if the pregnant woman herself had suffered the injury inflicted on her fetus. Florida and 23 other states states have similar statutes. The day's debate was as charged as any of the abortion debates of past years even though the bill's proponents insisted that it was not an abortion measure and that it explicitly says it does not apply to abortions. The National Right to Life Committee took out ads showing a Wisconsin woman, Tracy Scheide Marciniak, who had been attacked when she was nine months pregnant, cradling the dead body of the son that had been just days away from delivery. And Republicans had a poster of the photograph on the House floor. "America is deeply divided about government interfering with the right to choose," said Graham, "but that doesn't mean we consider the unborn child an enemy." The opponents said the measure was designed to create a federal recognition of a fetus as a separate person. "This would be the first time in the federal legal system that we would begin to recognize a fertilized egg, a zygote, an embryo or a fetus," said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. "No sneaking around today, fellows. We're going to have to put it all on the table." Republican leaders quickly showed how they would try to use the vote as a political weapon. Minutes after the vote, Rep. J. C. Watts, R-Okla., issued a statement depicting the measure's opponents as extremists. "They lied to us about the gruesome practice of partial birth abortion," he said, "and now they are trying to tell us that there is nothing inside a mother's womb that ought to be protected from a murderer. This is wrong."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
