to change his mind and sign a bill that would make certain late-term (New York Times)
c.1997 N.Y. Times News Service<
NEW YORK—Cardinal John O'Connor joined the nation's otherRoman Catholic leaders Sunday in urging President Clinton to changehis mind and sign a bill that would make certain late-term abortions illegal.
In a joint letter to Clinton, O'Connor and the nation's othercardinals wrote that both Clinton and the public were misled by aprominent abortion-rights advocate last year when he said that theprocedure termed by some as ``partial birth'' abortion was veryrarely used and only in cases where the mother's life was indanger.
The advocate, Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of theNational Coalition of Abortion Providers, recently said hisstatements during last year's debate on Capitol Hill were not true.
O'Connor, after reading the letter to hundreds of peopleattending Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, told thecongregation, ``I plead with you to pray that this horror ofinfanticide will be once and for all banned from our land.''
On Friday, the president reasserted that he would veto thelegislation again unless it allows the procedure to protect awoman's health or fertility. As the bill is now written, it wouldonly allow the procedure if it threatened a woman's life. He saidthe proposed ban, reintroduced in both houses of Congress, could``take a few hundred women and wreck their lives and wreck thepossibility that they could have further children.''
But the allowance of the procedure to protect a woman's healthor fertility is viewed as unacceptable to the Roman Catholiccardinals and to most other abortion opponents.
Referring to an exemption if a woman's health is threatened,O'Connor said, ``The word health can include virtually anything.''
Alexander Sanger, president of Planned Parenthood of New YorkCity, said Sunday that to not allow abortion at a time when awoman's health is threatened would be to deny the woman herconstitutional rights.
``I believe the determination about the health risks to thewoman should be made by the physician in charge,'' Sanger said,``and not by our elected representatives, who cannot possibly knowall the conditions affecting the health of a woman in continuing apregnancy.''
Public opinion polls last year showed that three-fourths ofAmericans favored banning the procedure, whose technical name isintact dilation and extraction. It involves delivering the fetuspartway, vacuuming out its brains and then removing the rest of thebody from the birth canal.
Both houses of Congress passed the bill last year, but it wasvetoed by Clinton after a heated debate that pitted what someconsider the gruesomeness of the procedure against the right ofwomen to choose the best means of abortion in consultation withtheir doctors.
The renewed hope of passage among abortion opponents, includingthe Roman Catholic cardinals, came recently when Fitzsimmons saidhe had ``lied through my teeth'' when he said earlier that the``partial birth'' procedure was performed rarely, no more than 450times a year.
Now, he says it is performed more frequently, perhaps as oftenas 5,000 times a year, and in the late second trimester, not onlyin the third, as he and other abortion-rights advocates hadrepeatedly said.
O'Connor, one of the nation's most vocal opponents of abortion,has long been outspoken about Clinton's veto of the bill.
Last August, he urged Roman Catholics to return to their oldpractice of not eating meat on Fridays to express their oppositionto the president's action.
Also, during last year's presidential election, neither Clintonnor Bob Dole were invited to the Alfred E. Smith memorial dinner, ahallowed tradition of presidential politics in New York City atwhich O'Connor was the host.
Since the annual dinner was first held in 1945, every man whohas become president has spoken there, except Harry S. Truman andnow Clinton. After last year's dinner, O'Connor said he decided notto invite the two presidential candidates because he was angry atClinton's veto.
Late Sunday afternoon, City Councilman Vito Fossella, R-StatenIsland, announced that he too was renewing his call for a ban ofthe procedure. At a news conference on Staten Island, Fossellacalled on the state Legislature to vote on bills that would make ita felony for anyone to perform a partial-birth abortion, unless itwas necessary to save the woman's life.
Last year, the state Senate passed a similar bill, but it wasnever voted on by members of the state Assembly.
``This procedure is morally indefensible,'' Fossella said.``With the revelations that proponents misled the public, it istime to give the issue a fair hearing.''<
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