SHOWDOWN SET OVER PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION

The stage is set in the Missouri Senate for another showdown over a bill banning the gruesome form of infanticide known as partial-birth abortion. Heading into the final four weeks of the legislative session, senators will have before them a couple of bills purporting to ban this unrecognized medical procedure. We say "purporting" because one bill earlier reported to the full Senate contains a health exception that guts it entirely and renders its ban a nullity. The bill to watch is House Bill 427, sponsored by state Rep. Bill Luetkenhaus, D-Josephsville. HB 427, which last month passed the House by a vote of 128-32, is the real deal. It would create the "crime of infanticide" and make it second-degree murder for a physician to perform the procedure. It is this bill, and none other, which the Senate should act upon and send to the governor's desk.

There is the minor fact that a pro-abortion majority on the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee inserted a health exception to this bill, against the wishes of its sponsor and other backers, but this easily can and will be stripped out on the Senate floor. HB 427 does contain an exception for the life of the mother, even though uncontroverted medical testimony says it is never indicated to save a life.

Luetkenhaus speaks to the reason why this bill keeps coming back despite the determined opposition of Gov. Mel Carnahan. "It's more than a statewide majority, it's a statewide supermajority" opposing the procedure, said Luetkenhaus. He is right. Year after year, Missourians return lopsided pro-life majorities to the Missouri House and Senate. Sooner or later these majorities will have their way with the most pro-abortion governor in Missouri history.

Gov. Carnahan says he won't sign any bill that lacks a health exception. We look forward to hearing his reasons why a bill banning a form of infanticide that takes 48 hours or more to perform must have a health exception. It looks as though HB 427 is headed for Carnahan's desk, and a veto, setting up another historic veto-override motion this September.