On October 8, 296 members of the House voted to once more send a ban on partial-birth abortion to President Clinton. He promptly vetoed the bill, using exactly the same discredited health-of-the-mother arguments as last time, back in April 1996. The gruesome procedure involves delivering the body but not the head of a baby and then vacuuming out its brains. This both achieves the abortion and, under existing law, allows the "doctor" to avoid being prosecuted for infanticide. It is worth noting that 132 House members, including eight Republicans, joined the president in voting to keep the practice legal. Who were these eight Republicans? We're glad you asked. Here are their names: Jim Kolbe of Arizona, Tom Campbell and Steve Horn of California, Nancy Johnson of Connecticut, Connie Morella of Maryland, Sherwood Boehlert and Ben Gilman of New York, and Jim Greenwood of Pennsylvania.
The congressional leadership does not plan another attempt to override the president's partial-birth veto until sometime next year. In the House, the override will probably succeed, the GOP "gang of eight" notwithstanding: The vote margin there was enough to enact a law over the president's objections. But when the Senate passed its latest version of the bill, on May 20 of this year, it did so by a vote of 64-36, three votes short of a veto-proof majority. Four Republican senators voted with the minority to uphold the legality of partial-birth abortion. They are: Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, John Chafee of Rhode Island, and Jim Jeffords of Vermont. If these four men and women do not change their votes, then a barbaric and unnecessary surgical procedure may well continue to enjoy the implicit sanction of federal law. And they -- along with President Clinton and 32 of the Senate's 45 Democrats -- will deserve the blame. Voters should seriously consider whether to return such irresponsible legislators to Washington.