NEWS ANALYSIS
For G.O.P., Abortion Bill
Signing Is a Moment
By ROBIN TONER
 ASHINGTON,
Nov. 5 — President Bush's signing of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act on
Wednesday was a moment of political triumph for the anti-abortion movement,
a reflection of its influence with a Republican-controlled Congress and a
Republican president. But it was also, leading opponents of abortion
say, a validation of the movement's long-term strategy of incrementalism,
restricting abortion step by step as part of the larger battle to turn public
opinion against Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that recognized
a constitutional right to abortion.
Regardless of how the courts ultimately rule on the new legislation, several
of its advocates described the long fight for passage as a "teaching moment"
that will endure.
"When I tell people what Roe v. Wade means, as far as how broad the right
of abortion is in this country, even people who are, quote, pro-choice, will
say, `That's not right,' " said Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania
and a leader in the fight for the bill, which bans a type of abortion used
in the second and third trimesters.
If the legislation is overturned by the courts — and a temporary restraining
order blocking its enforcement on a few doctors was already issued in Nebraska
on Wednesday — this would serve only as another object lesson in judicial
tyranny, some opponents of abortion asserted.
"Nothing can erase this moment in history," said one abortion opponent, Cathy
Cleaver Ruse, spokeswoman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
"People will know that in November 2003 the majority of Americans did everything they could to ban this procedure."
Supporters of abortion rights were beginning a counteroffensive: legal challenges
around the country, an advertising campaign warning of an ominous knock on
the door of a doctor's office, and vows to galvanize voters in next year's
elections.
Kate Michelman, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, said she believed
that Mr. Bush's signing of the legislation on Wednesday, before several hundred
cheering lawmakers and opponents of abortion, would serve as a "wake-up call"
to voters who support abortion rights.
"The American public has to some degree become relaxed in the view that we can't lose this right," Ms. Michelman said.
But advocates of abortion rights have repeatedly found themselves on the
defensive on this issue. After the Republicans regained control of the Senate
last year, enactment of the legislation was virtually inevitable, a measure
of the striking turnaround in political fortunes for the two sides of the
abortion debate.
Ten years ago, abortion opponents faced a Congress controlled by Democrats
and a president, Bill Clinton, committed to abortion rights. Even after the
Democrats lost control of the House and Senate in 1994, and conservatives
began pushing new abortion restrictions, Mr. Clinton was considered a fire
wall by the abortion rights movement; he twice vetoed earlier versions of
Wednesday's legislation.
But the legislation kept coming back, even after the Supreme Court ruled
three years ago that similar legislation passed by several states was unconstitutional.
Opponents of abortion were convinced that the debate alone was reshaping
public opinion, "opening a lot of Americans' eyes," as Douglas Johnson, legislative
director for the National Right to Life Committee, put it.
That was clearly the intent. Polls have shown that Americans' support for
legalized abortion tends to be strongest for procedures performed in the
first trimester, when about 90 percent of abortions are actually done. But
the debate over what critics call partial-birth abortion — known medically
as intact dilation and extraction, or intact D & X — focused attention
on a particular type of abortion performed in the second and third trimesters.
The law defines that procedure as the partial delivery of a living fetus,
and the performance of "an overt act" intended to kill it.
For eight years, opponents of abortion took the floor of the House and Senate
to deplore the practice, armed with graphic charts and drawings, arguing
that this was no mere clash of abstract rights but something tantamount to
infanticide.
"With partial-birth abortion, you can't miss the baby," Mr. Santorum said.
As with every other aspect of this debate, there was intense disagreement
over how many D & X abortions are performed, but the American College
of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has said the procedure is rarely used.
Still, abortion rights supporters asserted that the language of the legislation
was so vague that it could outlaw other, more commonly used abortion procedures.
They also noted that the legislation failed to include a health exception,
allowing the procedure if necessary to protect a woman's health, a provision
that the Supreme Court has held is essential.
Neither argument prevailed.
There are, of course, limits to the influence of the anti-abortion movement,
which its strategists are the first to recognize. The legislative agenda
now in Congress includes an array of incremental restrictions on abortion,
like a prohibition on transporting minors across state lines to avoid parental
notification laws.
Mr. Bush himself repeated last week that the country was not ready for a
total ban on abortion. And a majority of the Senate expressed its support
for the Roe decision in a vote on an amendment last spring, during the debate
on "partial birth."
"I've been in this movement 30 years," said Representative Christopher H.
Smith, Republican of New Jersey, "And all of us would have loved to see
more progress sooner. But we realize that dealing with the high bar of a
Supreme Court decision is a herculean task. We've all become dogged realists"
Which, of course, leads to the ultimate incrementalist strategy — changing the Supreme Court, seat by seat.
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