VETO SESSION TO INCLUDE ABORTION BILL

On Sept. 10, the General Assembly will return to Jefferson City for the annual two-day veto session. Ordinarily, and especially in recent years, these have been sleepy affairs. It has been some years since a veto override has even been attempted, and none has garnered the required two-thirds margin in both houses since former Gov. Joe Teasdale was overridden back in 1980.

This year promises to be different. There will be at least one, and possibly two or three, attempted overrides of Gov. Mel Carnahan's vetoes. Certain to be offered is a motion to override the governor's veto of Senate Bill 275, which bans the gruesome practice of partial-birth abortion. This bill passed with veto-proof margins in both the House (127-26) and Senate (28-3). In the Senate, 23 votes are required to override, while 108 are required in the House, owing to the fact that there is one vacancy in the 163-member chamber.

Partial-birth abortion is a ghastly procedure, a form of infanticide unrecognized in the medical literature. It poses a positive danger to women's health and future fertility. No alleged health reason can justify killing an infant as it is passing through the birth canal, inches and seconds from being born alive. The governor's tragic veto must be overridden.

The dean of the Senate, Democrat John Schneider of Florissant, is also sufficiently upset with a veto of another bill that he may attempt an override. Schneider says someone in the governor's office "double-crossed" him. This bill pertains to the process by which agencies of the executive branch adopt rules and regulations.

Still another attempted override, though less likely to be offered, could come on the economic development bill passed this year.

On average, Missouri lawmakers succeed in overriding a gubernatorial veto about once every 20 years. This just might be the year for another.