By MIKE DENNISON
Gazette State Bureau

HELENA - Republican lawmakers opposed to abortion blasted their Democratic colleagues Tuesday at the Legislature for blocking several anti-abortion bills this past week, saying Democrats are allied with "the big business of killing babies."

Sen. Dan McGee, R-Laurel, the sponsor of two of the bills, also promised that anti-abortion forces will try to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2010 to define human life or a "person" as beginning at conception.

"When the people of Montana are able to express themselves - and they will - they will define that a person is a person," he said at a Capitol news conference.

Twenty-nine Republican lawmakers attended the news conference, the day after House Republicans failed to revive five anti-abortion bills stalled in committee Friday on party-line votes.

All nine Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee voted against each bill last week, killing the measures unless three-fifths of present House members vote to bring the bills to the floor. Attempts to gain the three-fifths majority failed on each bill Monday evening, with all but a few Democrats in the 50-50 House voting against the attempts.

House Speaker Bob Bergren, D-Havre, said Tuesday that most Democrats oppose the measures because they support the right to privacy and the rights of women to decide reproductive issues.

Republicans who want to outlaw or further restrict abortion "don't have the support of the Legislature and don't have the support of the majority of Montanans," he said. Bergren also said he found it "hypocritical" that the same lawmakers who want to restrict or block abortion usually vote against sex education programs and publicly funded contraception, which can prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Democrats voted against bills that would license abortion clinics in Montana, make harming an unborn child a criminal offense, revise parental notification for minors getting an abortion and amend the state constitution in ways that could ban abortion.

The two constitutional amendments, sponsored by McGee, would have gone before Montana voters in 2010 if 100 of the 150 lawmakers approved the bills.

"It is truly unfortunate that the big business of killing babies has so persuaded the Democratic Party that they will disallow the people of Montana the opportunity to express themselves on this extremely vital issue," McGee said.

However, if McGee's constitutional amendment bills had made it to the House floor, they would have required at least 72 House votes to make it on the ballot - a political impossibility, given Democrats' opposition.

Warburton said Republicans called the news conference to let the public know that "the vast majority of Democrats consistently vote pro-abortion, while the vast majority of Republicans here are fighting for life."

She said between "2,000 and 3,000 abortions are performed in Montana every year" and that "hundreds of young women from surrounding states come here to get abortions, because we have no restrictions."

State statistics say Montana had 2,238 abortions performed in 2007, and about 260 were for nonresidents.

Stacey Anderson, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood of Montana, said Montana has a relatively low abortion rates among the states, and that women from neighboring states come to Montana for abortions because those states have almost no abortion providers.


Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.