An attempt to override his veto is expected in both chambers in 1998. Similar legislation has passed in a number of states around the country. The abortion procedures ban is an unprecedented intrusion into medical practice that risks the health and lives of women. Planned Parenthood opposes this bill in the strongest terms because it will endanger women and does nothing to prevent the need for abortion. HR 1122 also is a direct attack on Roe v. Wade and subsequent Supreme Court decisions that protect women's access to abortion.
Voters favor access to abortion when necessary to preserve the health of women.
Despite the claims of those who would ban all abortion, voters clearly believe that women, with the help of their doctors and families, are best able to make complicated medical decisions that affect their lives and health. In contrast, opponents of abortion have clearly articulated a strategy to use this ban as a wedge with the American public. Access Denied Since it was legalized nationwide in 1973, safe, legal abortion has saved the lives and health of countless women who would otherwise have sought desperate and deadly measures. Because of their understanding of the importance of access to safe, legal abortion, most Americans are pro-choice. Yet since 1995, Congress has passed provisions restricting access to abortion as part of yearly federal spending bills, and these have gone largely unnoticed by the general population.