KINDER'S COMMENTARY: SEPT. 10: SHOWDOWN SET ON VETO OF PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTIONS

Looming in September is an historic confrontation between Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan and those of us in the General Assembly who will seek to override his veto of Senate Bill 275, the bill banning the especially gruesome form of infanticide known as partial-birth abortion. It has become increasingly apparent that the governor is pulling out all the stops to have that veto sustained. Nothing sinister on the part of our governor is implied here; it is simply the case that no governor likes to have a veto overridden, any chief executive will pull out all the stops to prevent it, it takes two-thirds votes of both houses, and consequently, such events are rare indeed.

What say the early handicappers?

Well, to start with, the bill passed by such huge margins as to seem veto-proof, House and Senate. The tallies were 28-3 in the Senate (with two "ayes" absent) and 127-26 in the House. Scores of lawmakers who consider themselves pro-choice on abortion nonetheless choked on this particularly gruesome form of infanticide and voted for the bill. Not many seem to want to line up with Gov. Carnahan, who followed President Bill Clinton's lead in vetoing the measure.

At times such as these it is instructive to look to one's political heroes for instruction. For this writer that means a look at Ronald Wilson Reagan. Writing in the current weekly standard, historian and author Jeffrey Bell described Reagan's approach, differentiating it from the poll-driven "leadership" of today's politicians:

"In every memorable decision he made in his presidency, Reagan invoked morality as his central impetus, even in situations that at first glance did not appear particularly moral in nature. His decision early in his presidency to fire striking air-traffic controllers, for example, has in retrospect been analyzed as a major turning point in the history of relations between management and labor, paving the way for a painful and historic corporate restructuring that wound up revitalizing American business. There is a lot of truth to this analysis. But at the time, Reagan said nothing about business, deregulation, or the proper balance between management and labor. He fired the controllers because he believed there is no right to strike against the public. Period. He gave a speech saying this, and the American public immediately and overwhelmingly agreed."

Bell cites many other examples, including Reagan's courageous and memorable face-down of Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik in 1986. "In American politics," Bell reminds us, "morality is not primarily about believing in God or having a restrained lifestyle, though these are viewed as goods by most voters. In American politics, morality tends to be bound up with the idea of human equality, the core idea on which the country was founded."

Indeed. And what gets us to the notion of equality quicker than a debate over whether a full-term baby passing through the birth canal is part of the human family, within the protection of our laws -- or is to be pitilessly executed? I'm reading lots of Lincoln these days. You know: Debate transcripts from 1858, the Second Inaugural, stuff like that.

Sen. Harry Wiggins of Kansas City is a senior Democrat of 23 years' tenure and among the governor's closest legislative allies. For weeks Harry has been telling me that he will vote to override and will speak to this effect on the Senate floor. "I regard this as the most important vote in my 23 years in the Senate," Harry told me.

Deeply moved by that, I eagerly accept my friend Harry Wiggins' help in overriding the governor's veto. The afternoon of Sept. 10 should prove interesting.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.