c. 2003 Religion News Service

Senate Approves `Partial-Birth’ Abortion Bill, Sends It to Bush

WASHINGTON (RNS) President Bush said he will sign a bill passed by the Senate on Tuesday (Oct. 21) that bans so-called partial-birth abortions, a major victory for religious groups who have tried three times to ban the procedure.

The 64-34 vote by the Senate is the most sweeping federal restriction since abortion was legalized by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973. The House voted 281-142 on Oct. 2 to approve the bill

“We have just outlawed a procedure that is barbaric, that is brutal, that is offensive to our moral sensibilities and is out of the mainstream of the ethical practice of medicine today,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a surgeon from Tennessee.

Bush called the bill “very important legislation that will end an abhorrent practice and continue to build a culture of life in America.”

Congress previously voted twice to ban the procedure, but both bills were vetoed by former President Bill Clinton. Three years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a similar Nebraska law because it was too vague and did not include an exception to save the life of the mother.

Opponents have promised to immediately fight the bill in federal court after Bush signs it. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said the bill makes women “second-class citizens” and threatens to erode abortion rights.

The rare procedure is used in late-term pregnancies. Doctors partially deliver a fetus before using instruments to collapse the skull and kill the fetus.

Supporters say the current bill is more precise and will survive a court challenge. The bill imposes a two-year prison sentence and unspecified fines on any doctor who performs an “overt act” to “kill the partially delivered fetus.”

“Any society that allows such a barbarous procedure to continue has lost the right to call itself civilized,” said Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Religious groups that support abortion rights, such as the Jewish women’s group Hadassah, decried the bill as “the most flagrant attack on American women’s reproductive freedom in the 30 years since Roe v. Wade.”

The final bill did not include an earlier Senate provision that affirmed support for the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. That statement was not passed by the House and was removed by a joint House-Senate conference committee.

“Roe is extreme in every way and has been used to justify the brutal killing of infants who are almost completely born,” said Gail Quinn, executive director of the pro-life office at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Feeding Tube Restored for Brain-Damaged Florida Woman

(RNS) Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has ordered doctors to resume tube-feeding a severely brain-damaged woman despite the wishes of her husband.

The decision Tuesday (Oct. 21) by the governor about Terry Schiavo, which came after quick action by the state’s legislators, was cheered by some Christian groups concerned about life issues.

“This is a victory for all Americans who believe in a culture of life,” said Ray Flynn, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, who now serves as president of the conservative Catholic organization Catholic Voice.

“Thanks to the Florida legislature and Gov. Jeb Bush, Terri Schiavo will not be a victim of judicial homicide.”

The Family Research Council, a Washington-based conservative Christian group, said Bush took a courageous step.

“Thankfully, Terri and the people of Florida have a leader who not only takes a strong stand for life but is willing to stand up against a judiciary who does not,” said Tony Perkins, president of the council.

In his order, Bush called for medical personnel and facilities caring for Schiavo to “immediately provide nutrition and hydration” to her. The order cited the circumstances of the case, including that Schiavo has been declared by a court to be in a persistent vegetative state, she had no written advance directive and her parents had challenged the Oct. 15 withdrawal of hydration and nutrition for their daughter.

Schiavo’s husband, Michael Schiavo, says his wife would rather die. After the governor’s action, a judge rejected his request for the order to be overturned, the Associated Press reported.

Terry Schiavo was moved from a hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., to a hospital for the resumption of feeding.

While Bob Schindler, Schiavo’s father, said the turn of events “restored my belief in God,” her husband’s lawyer said Michael Schiavo was “deeply troubled, angry and saddened that his wife’s wishes have become a political pingpong.”

Terri Schiavo suffered brain damage in 1990 following a heart attack. Before the governor’s order _ which is effective until he revokes it _ she had been expected to live for one to two weeks without food.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Weary Pope Ends Eight Days of Anniversary Celebrations

VATICAN CITY (RNS) A fragile Pope John Paul II ended an eight-day celebration of the 25th anniversary of his pontificate on Wednesday (Oct. 22), too weary to celebrate Mass with 30 newly created cardinals.

The 83-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff was able to carry out the ceremony of conferring gold rings on the cardinals, but he did not leave his mobile throne during the two-hour Mass except to drop painfully to his knees with help from two prelates at the consecration of the host.

The Mass, scheduled for St. Peter’s Square, was moved into St. Peter’s Basilica because of rain. The church seats only 7,000 worshippers so several thousand pilgrims diverted to the nearby Paul VI audience hall where the pope greeted them briefly after the Mass.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and dean of the College of Cardinals, celebrated the Mass in the pope’s place with the new cardinals as concelebrants.

In his homily, read for him by Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, assistant Vatican secretary of state, the pope thanked the College of Cardinals, which now has a record 194 members from 68 countries, for “the strong help that you assure me.”

Striking a personal note, the pope spoke of the importance to him of prayer. “What great courage the support of the unanimous prayer of the Christian people instills,” he said. “I have been able to experience its comfort.”

The pope is crippled by arthritis and suffers from an advanced form of Parkinson’s disease, which has affected his vocal chords, but his close associates insist that failing health will not force him to resign.

“The pope can remain in his post even without the use of the word,” Portuguese Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, said in an interview with Sky television news. He called alarmism over the pope’s health “unfounded.”

“The church is not governed with legs and with words, but with the head and with the heart, and those of the pontiff are in a perfect state of health. Thus he can continue to govern the church as long as God wishes,” the cardinal said. “His evident physical limitations are not obstacles to his apostolic mission.”

Speaking in a thick voice with obvious effort, the pope himself read the Latin formula telling the new cardinals to receive the ring as a “sign of dignity, pastoral solicitude and firmer communion with the See of Peter.”

But as the cardinals kneeled before him one-by-one, he presented each with his ring in silence instead of repeating, “Receive this ring from the hand of Peter and know that with the love of the prince of the apostles your love toward the church is reinforced.”

Wednesday’s Mass ended celebrations of the pope’s silver jubilee, which included a Mass of Thanksgiving he celebrated at twilight on Oct. 16, the day and hour of his election; his beatification of Mother Teresa on Sunday (Oct. 19); and a Consistory on Tuesday at which he installed the new cardinals.

_ Peggy Polk

New Sentence Ordered for Rapist After Judge Cited Bible in Sentencing

(RNS) A Cincinnati federal court has ordered a new sentence for a convicted rapist after deciding a biblical reference by the sentencing judge was inappropriate.

U.S. Judge S. Arthur Spiegel threw out the 51-year sentence of James Arnett on Oct. 8 and said another judge should sentence him within 90 days, the Associated Press reported.

“The due process clause requires that a sentence be based on objective, legal standards established by statute, as opposed to personal or religious standards that have not been established or sanctioned by our democratic process and that people in this country have never been compelled to follow or accept,” wrote Spiegel.

Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro plans to appeal the decision.

In 1998, Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Melba Marsh said she turned to the Bible for guidance in determining the sentence and read a passage from the Gospel of Matthew that said anyone who offends a child would be better off if “a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

Marsh said she thought the Scripture was relevant to the case. Arnett was convicted of repeatedly raping his fiancee’s 8-year-old daughter.

Marsh declined to comment on the federal court decision.

Defense lawyer Charles Bartlett Jr. said, “None of us condone what happened to the child, but the sentence was entirely inappropriate.”

Quote of the Day: Former Southern Baptist Convention President Charles Stanley

(RNS) “You know what, if a woman is going to be submissive, she’s not going to be submissive because of the Southern Baptist Convention. It’s just ridiculous.”

_ Former Southern Baptist Convention President Charles Stanley, in an interview with the Star-Telegram of Fort Worth, Texas, speaking about how he believes the denomination’s faith statement that calls for wives to submit to their husband’s leadership amounts to a misinterpretation of the Bible.

DEA END RNS