This is an update from the Federal Legislation Department of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), 202-626-8820, issued Wednesday, March 26, 2003, at 2 p.m.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee this afternoon approved the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (H.R. 760) by a vote of 19-11. The Senate approved similar legislation (S. 3) on March 13, but the two bills are not identical, because the Senate added an amendment (the Harkin Amendment) to endorse the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade. In its 2000 ruling in Stenberg v. Carhart, five justices of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Roe v. Wade covers partial-birth abortion -- an abortion method that is used in mostly in the fifth and sixth months of prenatal development and sometimes later, but never during the first three months.

The most extensive archive of documentation on partial-birth abortion available on the internet, including links to groundbreaking investigations of the subject by journalists, is on the NRLC website, here: www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/index.html
Also viewable at that location is a series of color illustrations of the partial-birth abortion method, certified as fully accurate and recently made available to NRLC.

The National Right to Life Committee is the nation's major pro-life organization, representing affiliates in all 50 states.

VSHL is the Virginia affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee.