House Seeks to Override Veto on Abortion Ban

In a dramatic display of election-year political theater, the House plans today to attempt to override President Clinton’s veto of a bill that would outlaw a controversial late-term abortion procedure.

The effort to outlaw “partial-birth” abortions is not likely to succeed. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) has acknowledged that the override drive is six votes short. And on an issue where political views are as entrenched as they are on abortion, six votes represents a virtually unbridgeable gap. Even if the House should approve the override, however, its prospects for success are considered to be nil in the Senate.

But what this vote is about, say participants on both sides, is trying to win over a broad swath of Americans who claim to favor abortion rights by parading before them the grim details of a procedure by which a fetus is aborted after it has passed the 20th week of development. And it is about tipping the scales in a handful of congressional races.

Said Republican political consultant John McLaughlin: “A lot of pro-lifers aren’t concerned about winning this time, but about getting this on record and maybe winning the next time.”

The details of the late-term abortion procedure that would be banned by the bill Clinton vetoed are key to the issue’s political potency. The procedure involves delivering all of a fetus’ body but the head through the birth canal, then piercing the skull and sucking the contents out before removing the developing baby.

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Abortion-rights defenders say that it is a rare procedure--representing no more than about 1,000 of the 1.5 million abortions done yearly in the United States. They contend that it is practiced largely on women whose pregnancies threaten their health or who find out that the babies they carry could not survive outside the womb.

But the procedure’s foes maintain that it is far more common and that it often is performed on women whose fetuses are perfectly healthy or only slightly flawed.

The issue already has caused some lawmakers to shift their usual position on abortion rights. During the House vote on it earlier this year, 11 Democrats and one Republican listed by abortion-rights groups as “pro-choice” voted to ban the procedure.

Since that vote, at least one House lawmaker--Rep. Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.)--has notified constituents that he would change his earlier position against the ban and vote to override. Visclosky faces a stiff challenge from businessman Michael Petyo, who opposes abortion.

While few lawmakers are likely to fall on this issue alone, antiabortion forces are betting that a vote against the ban will nudge already vulnerable candidates a little closer to political extinction.

That’s the calculation that Superior Court Judge Linda Wilde has made in her bid to unseat Riverside Democrat George E. Brown Jr.

“The concept of partial-birth abortion is horrifying to most people in this district,” Wilde said. “But it’s not only partial-birth abortion, it’s [Brown’s votes on] gay marriage and welfare reform and three-strikes-and-you’re-out and the death penalty.”

Brown campaign manager, Bobi Johnson, said: “We don’t consider this a major issue in the race. It’s about jobs and the economy. . . . “