Strictest U.S. Abortion Law Signed by Utah’s Governor : Legislation: Procedure would be allowed to prevent birth of child with ‘grave defects’ or to avert damage to a pregnant woman’s health.

SALT LAKE CITY —  Utah’s governor signed the nation’s strictest state anti-abortion legislation into law Friday, and abortion rights advocates immediately promised a retaliatory tourism boycott campaign, including an effort to derail the state’s bid to host the 1998 Winter Olympics.

“This legislation is a mainstream attempt to protect the sanctity of life without trampling upon the legitimate liberty interests of women,” Gov. Norman H. Bangerter said at the signing ceremony.

He signed the measure a few hours after the state Senate voted 19 to 10 to approve an earlier House amendment stripping the bill of its most restrictive elements.

About two dozen protesters demonstrated outside the governor’s office in the Capitol. One woman waved a red coat hanger as activists chanted slogans such as “We will not go back.”

Unless blocked in federal court, the law would take effect 60 days after the Feb. 27 close of the legislative session.

Abortion rights proponents reacted swiftly.

“I think the governor of Utah is taking upon himself an enormous burden of endangering the lives of women and endangering the right to choose of all women,” said Kate Michelman, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League in Washington.

Activists have promised an economic and tourism boycott of Utah.

“I think there’s going to be a tremendous backlash of anger,” said Carole Florman of the Planned Parenthood Federation.

But Pat Nix, a member of the task force that drafted the legislation, said such threats were immaterial.

“I think life is more important than economic backlash,” she said.

The bill originally had two tiers, one imposing strict limits on abortion and the second a fallback option with more lenient provisions in case the first were deemed unconstitutional.

But the House on Thursday voted 41 to 31 to delete the first tier, agreeing that sending two versions to the U.S. Supreme Court made no sense.

The earlier Senate bill would have allowed abortion in cases of rape, incest, if a woman’s life were in jeopardy or if a doctor concluded the child would be born with physical or mental defects “incompatible with sustained survival.”

The fallback would permit abortion to prevent grave damage to the pregnant woman’s medical health--leaving open the possibility that a woman’s mental health could be considered--or to prevent the birth of a child with “grave defects.”

The House also imposed a 20-week limit on abortions for rape or incest victims, retaining a provision that the crime must be reported to police.

Anyone performing or supplying an abortion could be charged with a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Women seeking abortions would not be criminally liable.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it would challenge the law, and Michelman said her organization would join in the case.

Bangerter has not asked Utah Atty. Gen. Paul Van Dam for a formal opinion on the law. But in an informal letter to the Democratic caucus Thursday, Van Dam said he concurred with other legal authorities that both tiers were “unconstitutional as enunciated by the U.S. Supreme Court.”