The Senate closed a furious final week before the November election recess Friday with a debate over an anti-abortion bill that would make it a crime to bring girls across state lines to duck parental-notification laws.
Anti-abortion senators, most of them Republicans, believed they were close to ending a filibuster on the Child Custody Protection Act.
The act passed the Senate in June and the House passed a similar version the next month. Senate approval would reconcile the two bills and send it to President Bush’s desk for signing.
Supporters of the bill filed a cloture motion — which would end debate and bring the bill up for a vote on the floor — late Thursday.
Republicans hope an anti-
abortion bill will increase the turnout of pro-GOP Christian voters in the November elections. Both sides of the aisle have said privately that the Democrats stand a good chance of taking the House and narrowing the Republicans’ lead in the Senate this fall.
Anti-abortion groups say the bill is needed to protect girls from being victimized further by older men.
“Young girls are subjected to tremendous pressure from much older males and others who do not have their best interests at heart,” the National Right-to-Life Committee wrote in a public letter to senators Friday.
Abortion-rights advocates say the bill is an unnecessary intrusion into the private lives of girls and their families.
“I oppose this bill because it does not acknowledge that some minors cannot go to mom and dad for help,” Maryland Democratic Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski told The Examiner in an e-mail Friday.
