Nation & World News
Senate approves
‘partial-birth’ ban
The 64-34 landslide vote
will send the bill to Bush
By Tamara Lytle
The Orlando Sentinel (KRT)
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate
voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to
outlaw certain late-term abortions,
setting up a court battle about the
most serious challenge to abortion
rights in three decades.
President Bush said he was looking
forward to signing the bill, which
passed through the Senate 64-34 and
three weeks ago was approved by the
House 281-142. Former President Bill
Clinton had vetoed the measure twice
But now that abortion rights oppo
nents have a sympathetic president in
the White House the measure will be
come law — the first federal law re
stricting abortion since the landmark
Roe v. Wade case was decided by the
U.S. Supreme Court in 1973.
"This is very important legislation
that will end an abhorrent practice
and continue to build a culture of life
in America," said Bush, who was trav
eling in Southeast Asia.
The bill bans certain late-term pro
cedures that critics call "partial-birth
abortions" because the fetus is pulled
partly through the birth canal before
it is aborted. It is a rare procedure, but
exactly how rare is widely disputed.
Estimates regarding how often the
procedure is performed in the United
States range in scope from hundreds
to thousands of times a year. The pro
cedure, which doctors call "intact di
lation and extraction," represents a
tiny fraction of the 1.3 million abor
tions performed nationwide in 2000.
"It's an egregious, outlandish, ghoul- ■
ish procedure that is totally — from a
medical standpoint — unnecessary to
day," said Senate Majority Leader Bill
Frist, R-Tenn., who is a surgeon.
But abortion rights proponents call
it a safe procedure and say that pa
tients and doctors, not senators,
should be deciding the best medical
treatment for women.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., voted
against the ban.
"I am opposed to partial-birth
abortion except to save the life or
physical health of the mother, and the
bill doesn't do that" Nelson said. "If a
woman is going to be maimed for life,
that ought to be a consideration."
But Rep. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said
an exception from the ban for when a
woman's life is in danger could be in
terpreted too broadly. "'Health' is an
exception that swallows the rule."
Gloria Feldt, head of Planned Par
enthood, called the bill "the culmina
tion of a deceptive campaign to en
danger women's lives and mislead the
public for political gain."
Polls have shown less support for
the late-term abortions than for abor
tion rights in general. And Tuesday's
Senate floor debate was conducted
against a backdrop of photos of fetus
es and diagrams of the procedure.
Douglas Johnson of the National
Right to Life Committee said the
coming storm of lawsuits will sort out
the question: "Does the Constitution
really guarantee a right to deliver a
premature infant to within inches of
complete birth, and then kill her?"
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif„
said the ban was designed to weaken
support for abortion rights and to gar
ner political support. Even anti-abor
tion activist Randall Terry has said the
ban is a "public-relations gold mine"
for his side of the debate, she said.
Both sides agree that the bill will
end up in court.
Feldt said Planned Parenthood will
move immediately for an injunction
to stop the ban from being enforced.
The Supreme Court in 2000 over
turned a similar Nebraska law, saying
it wa$ tpo bjroad in the procedures it
banned and did not make an excep
tion in cases where a woman's life was
in danger.
But Frist said he's confident this bill
will withstand court scrutiny because
lawmakers laid out evidence that the
procedure is never medically necessary
to preserve the health of the woman.
(c) 2003, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
FROHNMAYER
continued from page 1
an enormous amount of energy."
For the most part, student groups
have been pleased with Frohnmayer's
leadership, and an ASUO spokes
woman praised the president for his
staunch advocacy of the incidental fee.
"As long as he's president, we won't
have to be on pins and needles," ASUO
spokeswoman Taraneh Foster said.
Frohnmayer said he has grave con
cerns about the misconception that
universities are private institutions that
"students should pay for because they'll
earn a lot of money, and that therefore
the state doesn't have an independent
obligation to support them." People
don't realize that the University is a
public good, Frohnmayer said.
While Frohnmayer admitted that
some Oregonians think of the Uni
versity as a waste of tax dollars, he
finds the argument ridiculous.
"For every $70 million invested in
the University of Oregon — which is
our annual budget of tax dollars —
we return $700 million to the re
gion," he said. "It's one of the best in
vestments in economic development
that a state can make."
Frohnmayer's reign has not been
without controversy. His staunch op
position to an official University stance
condemning the war in Iraq angered
many people, but Frohnmayer said he
doesn't regret his decision.
"To me that was a very straightfor
ward call and in keeping with the tra
ditions of the University," Frohnmay
er said. "If (the University) remains a
neutral forum, the people within it
are free and are protected to take un
popular positions.
"(It's) amazing and a little bit
alarming to see how many people
want to capture the official voice of
the University for their particular po
litical perspective," Frohnmayer said.
Another controversy that roiled his
administration came in 2000 when the
University joined the Worker Rights
Consortium, an anti-sweatshop group,
and then quickly dropped out. Frohn
mayer admits he could have handled
the situation better.
"I wish I'd been more on top of the
facts of the controversy and the na
ture of the organization we were
asked to join," he said. "It was not
what it was represented to be."
Frohnmayer said the University
paid a steep price for the controversy.
"The price that we paid in terms of
alumni disaffection — I'm not even
talking now primarily about Phil
Knight — was a price that we should
n't have paid," he said.
But all that is in the past, and the
only thing Frohnmayer must contend
with now is the regular day-to-day pres
sure of being University president. As
another jam-packed week draws to a
close, Frohnmayer said he plans to
spend his Saturday enjoying the Duck
football game against Stanford.
Any predictions?
"Oh, I think we'll win."
Contact the campus/
federal politics reporter
at chuckslothower@dailyemerald.com.
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