As protesters denounced him, US President George W. Bush on Wednesday signed a ban on a type of late-term abortion and promised to defend it in court despite an initial legal setback.
The so-called ban on "partial birth" abortion was a long-sought victory for the Christian right and abortion opponents in the run-up to the 2004 election.
PHOTO: AP
But within minutes of the signing ceremony, a federal judge in Nebraska issued a temporary restraining order barring US Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Justice Department from enforcing the new law against four doctors who practice in more than a dozen states.
A district judge in New York took a similar legal challenge under advisement after a three-hour hearing. Abortion rights groups have also asked a California court to block and ultimately overturn the new law.
Bush, an evangelical Christian, cast the ban in stark terms: as the government coming to the defense of the "innocent child" against "a terrible form of violence."
"Today, at last, the American people and our government have confronted the violence," Bush said.
Abortion rights groups countered the ban would sacrifice women's health and rights for Bush's political gain, and promised a court fight that could drag on for months if not years.
Bush vowed his administration would "vigorously defend this law against any who would try to challenge it in the courts."
He took the unusual step of signing the ban into law at a building named after Ronald Reagan, the former Republican president who opposed abortion, instead of at the White House.
Outside, dozens of protesters denounced him with signs that read: "Keep abortion legal" and "We trust our doctors more than we trust Bush." The American Civil Liberties Union called it "a deceptive and dangerous" measure.
In a statement, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, a doctor, called it a "dark day for American women" and warned the ban would "chill the practice of medicine and endanger the health of countless women."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the ban was a "practical" step to reduce US abortions and Bush would support additional efforts to end abortions, including measures to promote adoption and sexual abstinence.
If it withstands the legal challenges, the "partial birth" abortion ban would constitute the first federal limit on a type of abortion since the 1973 Roe versus Wade Supreme Court ruling backing abortion rights.
Bush said last week that the US was not ready for a total abortion ban.
Critics say the measure will ban many abortion techniques, not one particular procedure, and that it is effectively no different from a Nebraska law invalidated by the US Supreme Court three years ago.
That was what the ACLU argued on Wednesday in federal court in New York, trying to block enforcement of the law before it is scheduled to take effect at 12:01am on Nov. 6.
"The Supreme Court has spoken," Talcott Camp, deputy director of the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, argued in court.
Sponsors of the ban said they took prior court objections into account and believed it would be upheld.
The US Congress has held emotional debates on the partial birth abortion for years, and former President Bill Clinton twice vetoed similar legislation because it did not contain an exception to protect the health of a woman.
Congress determined such an exception was not necessary for health reasons, but did include a narrow one to save a woman's life.
Under the bill, a doctor could face up to two years in prison as well as civil lawsuits for performing a "partial birth" abortion, defined as intentionally killing a fetus that has been partially delivered.
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