by Frank James

President-elect Obama famously said during his interview with preacher Rick Warren at Saddleback Church that determining the point at which an unborn "baby" gets rights was "above his pay grade."

Making that determination has obviously not been a problem for the Catholic Church. Indeed, underscoring their position that life begins at conception, U.S. Catholic bishops meeting in Baltimore voted almost unanimously to approve the "Order for the Blessing of a Child in the Womb."

Here's the press release:

BISHOPS APPROVE BLESSING FOR CHILD IN THE WOMB

BALTIMORE--The U.S. bishops approved the Order for the Blessing of a Child in the Womb for use in the dioceses of the United States with a 223-1 vote November 11, at their General Assembly in Baltimore. The bishops also approved a Spanish version of the blessing with a 224-0 vote.

by Frank James, updated at 5:37 pm with Obama campaign response.

Does Sen. Barack Obama really mean to say he supports new restrictions on late-term abortions that would effectively weaken Roe v Wade?

That's the huge question that remains following the Democratic presidential candidate's statement yesterday that he doesn't believe a pregnant woman's "mental distress" should be considered a sufficient exception to bans against late-term abortions.

As Jan Crawford Greenburg, ABC News legal correspondent so ably points out in her Legalities blog, Obama's response yesterday to a reporter's question in which the senator sought to clarify his earlier remarks on the issue, left open the possibility that he actually supports a significant narrowing of abortion rights.

This, of course, would come as a shock to his liberal supporters and many of those voters who backed Sen. Hillary Clinton in the primaries, voters Obama is now trying to win over. Many of those voters very much support abortion rights.

Attempting to clarify comments he made during an interview in Relevant magazine in which he seemed to strongly indicate that he supported a late-term abortion exception for the physical-health of the mother but left the impression he might not support a mental-health exception, Obama yesterday told reporters on his campaign plane that he, indeed, supported mental-health exceptions. Such exceptions were acceptable so long as they were for clinically-diagnosed conditions, he indicated.

What he did not support was the idea of exceptions that would allow late-term abortions based on "mental distress." "It is not just a matter of feeling blue," Obama said.

I'm not too proud to say that answer was enough to throw this non-lawyer off the scent but it didn't Jan, a University of Chicago trained lawyer. That's why when she worked with us at the Chicago Tribune where she covered the Supreme Court, her nickname was Justice Greenburg, because of her detailed knowledge of the high court and her probing mind.

by Frank James

Sen. Barack Obama clarified his position today on mental-health exceptions to late-term abortions, saying he supports such exceptions and that comments he made during a recent magazine interview shouldn't be interpreted as opposing them.

As I wrote in an earlier posting, Obama raised eyebrows with an interview in Relevant magazine in which he said he opposed "mental distress" as a reason for aborting a fetus at or after roughly 22-weeks into a pregnancy, a so-called late-term abortion.

In saying that, it appeared that Obama was placing himself at odds with Roe v Wade and subsequent Supreme Court rulings which have upheld the constitutionality of mental-health exceptions.

But in a press availabilty on his campaign plane today on the flight from Butte, Mont. to St. Louis, Obama clarified what he meant.

Here's a transcript of the interchange as provided by the campaign.

Reporter: You said that mental distress shouldn't be a reason for late-term abortion?

I don't think that is how it has been interpreted. My only point is that in an area like partial-birth abortion having a mental, having a health exception can be defined rigorously. It can be defined through physical health, It can be defined by serious clinical mental-health diseases. It is not just a matter of feeling blue. I don't think that's how pro-choice folks have interpreted it. I don't think that's how the courts have interpreted it and I think that's important to emphasize and understand."

Operation Rescue President Troy Newman speaks to the media on the 34th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision in Wichita, Kan. in 2007. (AP Photo/Larry W. Smith)

by James Oliphant

WICHITA, Kan.--Troy Newman appears to be just about the happiest person who ever set foot in an abortion clinic.

"We're winning," Newman says excitedly. "We're winning the youth. We're winning the hearts and minds of the people."

Except for his prematurely gray hair, Newman, the head of Operation Rescue, perhaps the most aggressive anti-abortion group in the nation, seems boyish and eager.

"I just want to be the best pro-lifer I can be," he said.

The organization has just moved into its new offices in Wichita, a shuttered abortion clinic that Newman helped hassle out of business. "Nothing warms my heart more than a closed abortion clinic," he said. He keeps souvenirs in his office of some of the clinics he has claimed credit for helping shut down.

Newman has good reason to feel optimistic. Through the work of groups like his, the number of places where women can obtain abortions in the United States has shrunk by two-thirds since the early 1990s, to about 700. The Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-rights think tank that has had a longtime connection to Planned Parenthood, estimates abortions are now unavailable in 87 percent of counties nationwide.

It was in 1992 that the Supreme Court most famously reaffirmed a woman's constitutional right to abortion, in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey. Newman said that case sent a signal to groups like his that they couldn't wait for a solution on the federal level.

"All politics is local," he said. "I asked myself, 'What can I do?' I can save this baby and close this abortion clinic."

The national divide over abortion promises to resurface in the coming general presidential campaign. The presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, opposes abortion rights. Though he has never made that opposition a cornerstone of his congressional career, he has called for the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 decision declaring that it was unconstitutional to ban abortion.

Read the story in today's Chicago Tribune.

by James Oliphant

A federal appeals court in Richmond Tuesday threw out the state's ban on late-term or so-called "partial birth" abortions, even after the U.S. Supreme Court last year ruled a similar federal ban was constitutional.

In the ruling, the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said the state's ban "imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to obtain an abortion," Judge M. Blane Michael wrote in the majority opinion, joined by Judge Diana Gribbon-Motz.

The same court reached a similar decision in 2005, but agreed to review the Virginia law again after the Supreme Court upheld the federal ban last year in Gonzales v. Carhart.

Judge Paul Niemeyer who dissented in the 2005 ruling, also dissented this time, writing that the law "is virtually identical to the federal statute upheld as constitutional" in the Supreme Court's 2007 ruling.

The key difference between the two statutes: The federal law protects doctors who intend to perform a legal abortion that by accident becomes the banned procedure. The Virginia statute provides no such protection.

The ruling comes at a time when the judiciary is again emerging as a major campaign issue in the general election. Last week, the California Supreme Court ruled that gays in that state could legally marry. Both that decision and the Virginia abortion ruling were bitterly attacked by conservative advocates.

Wednesday, the Washington Times carried a front-page story saying that conservatives were now rallying around the presumptive GOP nominee, John McCain, over this very issue, fearing that Democratic president could loosen the foothold conservatives have carefully built in the federal courts since the Reagan administration.

by Jim Tankersley

A Republican House candidate in a toss-up Oregon district found a way to cut through the White House buzz and make some news on Monday: by dropping an abortion bomb on his opponent.

Kevin Mannix, a former state GOP chairman and gubernatorial candidate, and Mike Erickson, a wealthy businessman, are competing for the Republican nomination in the race to replace retiring Rep. Darlene Hooley, a Democrat. Analysts consider the seat, where registered Republicans narrowly lead registered Democrats, one of the best GOP pick-up opportunities across the country this fall.

Oregon holds its primary election on May 20, and the state's news outlets have been consumed in recent days by a steady parade of presidential candidates hitting the state - John McCain yesterday, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama last week. But Mannix splashed his way into newspapers and onto television yesterday by sending 60,000 voters a mailer that alleges Erickson impregnated a woman in 2000, then paid for her abortion.

"I cannot in good conscience allow this election to proceed without being open with you as to this sad situation which has been presented to me," Mannix said in his letter, according to The Oregonian, the state's largest newspaper. "Rarely have I been confronted with such a difficult decision as to whether to proceed with something of this nature. But what is on the line here is the character of the person who will represent you in Congress."

Erickson is running as a pro-life, family values candidate. His campaign denied the allegation, which raises both political and journalistic questions.

by Matthew Hay Brown

House Democrats picked up an anti-abortion member over the weekend with the special election victory of Don Cazayoux, and could gain another if Travis Childers defeats Greg Davis in Mississippi next week. So does that mean the caucus, which has relied on the support of voters who favor legal abortion, is growing more conservative?

"This is not a party issue," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said this morning, when asked the question at his weekly meeting with the Capitol press corps. "We don't make that a party issue. We don't whip that issue. Members have to vote their conscience on that issue, and do."

Hoyer, himself a moderate Democrat from conservative Southern Maryland, listed the issues that unite the party as "the quality of life for real people, jobs, their health care, their education for their kids, and their national security and homeland security and security at home."

"That is why people are Democrats," Hoyer said. "And that is what distinguishes, I think, the Democratic Party from the Republican Party. The social issues are issues which people feel strongly about for one reason or another. But the issues that I think you will see pretty consistent Democratic unity on are issues affecting families every day."

by Matthew Hay Brown

Making his first papal visit to the United States in the midst of a presidential election, Pope Benedict XVI had stepped lightly around the issues that ignite partisan debate here - immigration and the war in Iraq among them - even as he urged Catholics to exercise their faith in the public square.

But not so today, when he proclaimed the "inalienable dignity and rights" of "the most defenseless of all human beings, the unborn child in the mother's womb."

The line from Benedict's homily drew cheers from the crowd of 57,000 who packed Yankee Stadium for the third and final mass of the pontiff's visit. In its forthrightness, as compared to the language in which he couched his references to other issues, it had the effect of elevating opposition to abortion above other Catholic positions subject to American political action.

At the United Nations, Benedict's call for "a deeper search for ways of pre-empting and managing conflicts by exploring every possible diplomatic avenue" might have been a veiled criticism of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

A joint statement released by the Holy See and the White House about discussions between Benedict and President Bush on immigration and the conduct of the war on terror seemed intentionally vague.

On abortion, however, the pontiff was unequivocal, praising the Catholic Church in America for its "prophetic witness in the defense of life."

by Matthew Hay Brown, updated

If it’s Jan. 22, it must be the March for Life. On the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, demonstrators today are filling Washington hotels, crowding the Metro and jamming up the streets en route to the National Mall, where they will hear speeches and make their opposition to abortion known.

They have been welcomed by Republicans including President Bush, who met with several marchers this morning at the White House.

“Thirty-five years ago today the United States Supreme Court declared and decided that under the law an unborn child is not considered a person,” Bush said. “Biology confirms that from the start each unborn child is a separate individual with his or her own genetic code. Babies can now survive outside the mother's womb at younger and younger ages. And the fingers and toes and beating hearts that we can see on an unborn child's ultrasound come with something that we cannot see: a soul.”

Supporters of abortion rights, meanwhile, are celebrating the anniversary. The National Organization for Women is planning a vigil this afternoon outside the Supreme Court.

“Though we are celebrating 35 years of constitutional protection of a woman’s right to abortion, we cannot led our guard down,” NOW President Kim Gandy said. “With so many limitations and roadlocks, the promise of Roe is already denied to many women, and access to birth control is under increasing attack. This year we have the chance to elect a new administration and send new members to Congress who will help protect and expand our reproductive freedom. Come November we must elect a president who will be vigilant in upholding a woman's right to make her own childbearing decisions, including access to birth control and abortion.”

by James Oliphant, and updated

The abortion rights advocacy group NARAL Pro-Choice America was unhappy with Verizon. The telecommunications giant recently rejected a request from the group to use its network to transmit text messages to abortion rights supporters.

NARAL wanted Verizon subscribers to be able to submit a “short code” to Verizon in order to receive text alerts from the organization, but Verizon refused. The company says it has the right to not allow its network to be used for “controversial” or “unsavory” purposes. Other wireless companies have allowed the messages, which has become a popular means of organizing grass-roots movements.

NARAL urged its supporters to send e-blasts to Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam.

Interestingly, Verizon’s general counsel is none other than William Barr, the former attorney general under President George H.W. Bush who was briefly mentioned as a possible successor to Alberto Gonzales. Verizon’s campaign contributions are more bipartisan however. Its political action committee has thrown money to Republicans and Democrats alike, with special attention paid, of course, to the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the telecom industry.

UPDATE: NARAL now says Verizon has reversed itself and allowed the short code. The group says 20,000 messages were sent to the company in two hours. Here is the letter from Verizon.

by James Oliphant

A new front could be opening in the abortion wars.

A federal judge says he will decide Monday whether to delay implementation of a new Missouri law that regulates abortion clinics set to go into effect next week.

The law heralds a new tactic from a state that has earned a reputation for pushing the limits on regulating abortion procedures. It would classify abortion clinics as outpatient surgery centers, requiring them to meet certain state health and safety standards to remain open.

Supporters of the law say it ensures the safety of the patients. Opponents, such as Planned Parenthood, say it will make abortions less available. Planned Parenthood insists it would have to close its clinic in Kansas City and renovate its clinic in Columbia, Mo., making St. Louis, for the time being, the only clinic in the state that could remain open.

Planned Parenthood argued Thursday for an injunction to block the law from taking effect. Missouri federal judge Ortrie Smith says he'll rule on the request by 5 p.m. Monday. (Smith was nominated to the federal bench by President Clinton in 1995.) If he doesn't side with Planned Parenthood, expect an immediate appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

Some U.S. Supreme Court observers believe that last term's "partial-birth" abortion decision has dulled any interest in the justices taking another abortion controversy this coming term. But down the road they may not be able to dodge a decision on a new wrinkle like the Missouri law presents.

by David Lightman

Democrats want to change the nature of the debate on the most divisive domestic issue in America.

"For years the discussion has been around the legality of abortion," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut. She and Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat who opposes abortion, are "determined to get beyond that discourse and say, `How do you reduce the need for anybody to have an abortion?'"

The two teamed up this month to persuade the House to approve a $647 million measure called "Reducing the Need for Abortions Initiative." The measure represents a shift, one motivated as much by politics as philosophy.

Members of both parties have thought for some time that the fight over abortion has made it harder to enact broad family planning and pregnancy prevention programs.

And Democrats have been losing the abortion fight, at least at the margins, for some time.

by Mike Dorning

Barack Obama was the favorite presidential candidate in an Internet poll of supporters of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, an abortion rights group that also places a heavy emphasis on other reproductive health issues such as sex education and access to contraceptives.

Obama received votes from 42 percent of those who voted, besting rivals Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Members of Planned Parenthood were invited to vote after Obama, Clinton and Edwards' wife Elizabeth spoke at a forum last Tuesday in Washington. The speeches were posted on the group's web site and members were allowed to vote through Friday, a spokeswoman said.

Obama's commitment to a robust sex education curriculum was highlighted by a minor controversy that erupted during the period of the Internet poll.

During his speech at the Planned Parenthood forum, Obama made reference to a controversy during his 2004 Senate race in which Republican opponent Alan Keyes criticized him for supporting legislation mandating an expanding sex education curriculum in Illinois schools reaching down to kindergarten.

Obama reaffirmed his support for an "age-appropriate" sex education curriculum including kindergarten at the forum. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney picked up on the comment, blasting Obama for supporting any form of sex education at such a young age.

by Mike Dorning

Elizabeth Edwards promised this morning that her husband would promote a health plan that included coverage of abortions for all Americans.

Speaking on behalf of presidential candidate John Edwards at a candidates forum at a meeting of the abortion-rights group Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Edwards promoted her husband's health care proposal as "a true universal health care plan" that would cover "all reproductive health services, including pregnancy termination," referring to abortion.

Later, in response to a question from the audience, Edwards said that the campaign's health care plan would permit Planned Parenthood clinics, which typically provide a range of reproductive health services including abortion, to expand around the country.

"You could expand your services," Edwards said. "You would be an eligible provider for all services you provide."

Posted by Frank James at 1:29 pm CDT

This is the day that abortion foes have long awaited and supporters have equally dreaded with the Supreme Court upholding the federal ban against partial-birth abortion in a five-to-four decision.

It’s the first time the court has voted to restrict a specific abortion procedure, one that is controversial but supported by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists or ACOG.

Partial-birth abortion, incidentally, isn’t a medical term, which is part of the problem since ACOG says the federal law is so broad it could be interpreted to cover a majority of abortions in the second-trimester pregnancies.

The decision was of the sort that likely had many liberals in Washington pining for the good old days of the Rehnquist Court when, even though the court tilted conservative, they at least had a mostly reliable abortion-rights vote in retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Those days are clearly over.

Posted by Pete Souza at 4:35 pm CST

Bob Ritter, a pro choice advocate from suburban Washington, argues with pro lifers in front of the U.S. Supreme Court during the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 22, 2007. In a somewhat bizarre scene, Ritter was later asked by a police official to leave the premises because he had a pair of scissors in his back pocket; Ritter said he worked nearby and forgot that he had them.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), who announced this weekend he is seeking the Repubican nomination for President, greets fellow pro-lifers. Chicago Tribune photos by Pete Souza.