LYNN NEARY: We begin with news of a congressional vote on abortion legislation. The House of Representatives Thursday voted to override President Clinton's veto of a bill that bans a late-term abortion procedure called partial-birth abortion by its opponents. This was the second time the House voted for the override. And as Paul Miller reports, the volatile debate continues to be a key issue for diverse religious groups.PAUL MILLER: Once again, more than two thirds of the House voted for the ban on the late-term procedure. The timing of this debate, three months before congressional elections, was denounced by several representatives as pure politics. Analysts said the bill was part of the Republican leadership's courting of the religious right, along with the recent passage of bills to restrict teenagers getting out-of-state abortions and to bar federal funding for tests of drugs that induce abortion. While some political analysts see the legislation as a way of giving candidates an acceptable voting record, those on either side of the abortion controversy say the bill's impact goes way beyond electoral politics.
A group opposed to the late-term procedure, including Catholics, Baptists, Jews, and even some supporters of abortion rights, said it was barbaric to abort a fetus that might be viable outside the womb.
HELEN ALVARE (Catholic Bishops Conference): There is huge public support for banning this procedure. There's a sense in which society wants to say about itself, "No, we don't support what looks like infanticide. That really troubles us."
BARRY LYNN (Americans United for Separation of Church and State): Clearly, this is not simply about banning one specific procedure. What the states are trying to do is to find new, creative ways around Supreme Court doctrine that makes it difficult to overregulate this procedure.
