President Bush Signs Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003

WASHINGTON, November 5, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Just before 2pm today, President George W. Bush made U.S. history signing the first restriction on abortion since Roe v. Wade in 1973.  While pro-abortion groups have launched legal challenges to the legislation, a federal district judge in Nebraska immediately enjoined the law from being enforced. Bush vowed in his signing ceremony that “the executive branch will vigorously defend this law against any who would try to overturn it in the courts.”  Reacting to the signing, Jim Hughes President of Campaign Life Coalition Canada told LifeSite, “It’s absolutely wonderful.  Thank God.”  Speaking of the President he said, “This man has the courage to speak up and to be a man of conviction, a man of his word. His action will result in the saving of thousands of lives. Canadian politicians please take note.”  The President recognized the presence of the legislators who introduced and supported the bill through the House and Senate, as well as New York’s Cardinal Egan.  The signing marks the culmination of an eight-year campaign launched by the pro-life movement and headed up by the National Right to Life Committee NRLC.  The legislation restricts only “partial-birth abortion,” and it legally defines a partial-birth abortion as any abortion in which the baby is delivered “past the navel . . . outside the body of the mother,” or “in the case of head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother,” before being killed.  The bill would allow the method if it was ever necessary to save a mother’s life.  Nonetheless, former President Clinton twice vetoed the legislation beginning in 1995.  President Bush was resolute in its passage.  He said, “For years, a terrible form of violence has been directed against children who are inches from birth, while the law looked the other way. Today, at last, the American people and our government have confronted the violence and come to the defence of the innocent child.”  Recent polls demonstrate the vast majority of American agree.  A Gallup-CNN-USA Today poll conducted in late October found that among “young adults” (age 18-29), the ban is favoured 77-19%, while among the older groups, support was 68-25%.  In his speech Bush mentioned the “rights of the unborn” and added, “America stands for liberty, for the pursuit of happiness and for the unalienable right of life . . . This right to life cannot be granted or denied by government, because it does not come from government, it comes from the Creator of life.”  See the full address by the President:  https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/nov/031105a.html