In front of a crowd of 400 cheering lawmakers and pro-life advocates, President Bush signed the partial-birth abortion ban into law Nov. 5.
“For years, a terrible form of violence has been directed against children who are inches from birth while the law looked the other way,” Bush said in a ceremony held in a federal building named for former President Ronald Reagan, a strong supporter of the pro-life movement. “Today at last the American people and our government have confronted the violence and come to the defense of the innocent child.”
An “Amen” could be heard from the audience as Bush sat down at a desk, before a row of American flags, to sign the bill passed in October by Congress, according to the Associated Press. The president affirmed that signing the legislation, designed to ban a form of abortion usually carried out late in a pregnancy in which a baby is partially delivered before being killed, was another step at building a culture of life in America.
“This right to life cannot be granted or denied by the government because it does not come from the government. It comes from the Creator of life,” Bush said to a lengthy standing ovation.
While pro-life advocates celebrated the signing of the bill they have worked for more than eight years to see passed, pro-abortion advocates were already challenging the ban in court. Less than an hour after the president signed the legislation, a federal judge blocked the ban in the cases of four Nebraska doctors who filed a lawsuit against it.
U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf issued a temporary restraining order against the ban, saying that the law did not contain an exception for the health of the woman seeking an abortion, according to AP.
The judge’s order only applies to the four doctors who filed the lawsuit in Nebraska, but pro-abortion advocates hope similar decisions will be made in courts across the country. Hearings were being held in San Francisco and New York on similar challenges the same day.
At the ceremony in Washington, Bush addressed the legal obstacles he knew the bill would face. “The executive branch will vigorously defend this law against any who would try to overturn it in court,” he said to the longest round of applause of the morning.
Those challenging the ban in court say they oppose the bill in part because it does not provide an exception for the health of mothers. Supporters of the ban say that the partial-birth abortion procedure is almost always carried out in the latest term of a pregnancy and is never needed to protect a woman’s health. (EP)
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