With its passage in the House, the battle shifts to the evenly divided Senate, where its fate is uncertain. The measure would for the first time make it a separate federal crime to harm or kill a fetus in the course of committing another federal crime. Bush has announced his support for the bill, signaling a change in the political climate for this and other anti-abortion legislation in the wake of the 2000 elections. The similar bill passed by the House two years ago was opposed by President Clinton. Voting against the bill was Rep. Amo Houghton, R-Corning.
Today is about bringing the country together . . . to put people in jail that deserve to go.
But helping propel the measure was strong support from anti-abortion groups. And the bill's critics argued it was a sneak attack on abortion rights that, by treating the fetus as a legal entity separate from the pregnant mother, would lay groundwork for undermining a woman's right to an abortion. It is designed to come in the back door to try to define the fetus as a person. Rep. Henry J. Hyde, R-Ill., a leading abortion rights foe, held out little hope for Senate action on the new House bill. The debate lasted several hours, with proponents recounting instances in which men brutally beat women, usually their girlfriends or wives, terminating pregnancies in the process.