NEW YORK -- The Hatch Amendment calling on Congress and individual states to adopt laws prohibiting abortion will not win approval in the U.S. Senate, a Planned Parenthood lawyer said Thursday.
The proposed constitutional amendment was approved by a 10-7 vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday. It is named after its sponsor, Sen. Orin Hatch, R- Utah.
Harriet Pilpel, general counsel to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, predicted failure for the proposal in a keynote speech opening the four-day annual meeting of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists.
'The Hatch Amendment will not get the necessary two-thirds vote to pass in the Senate,' she said.
'The senators voting for the amendment probably did so only to get it out of committee.
'They probably just wanted to bring it out for the full Senate to debate.'
Hatch's proposal would reverse the 1973 Supreme Court of the United States decision upholding the right of women to seek abortions.
If approved by two-thirds of each house of Congress and ratified by legislatures of three-fourths of the states, the amendment would give Congress and the state power to restrict and prohibit abortion.
'If a woman does not have freedom over her sexual reproduction, she has no freedom at all,' Mrs. Pilpel said.
'She is the slave of her own physiology.'
Mrs. Pilpel said if the Hatch proposal is defeated, she expects the senator to attempt to have Congress approve a 'human life' act -- a piece of legislation defining conception as the beginning of life. The lawyer said a 'human life' act would require approval by a majority of both houses of Congress.
'I don't know why he thinks he (Hatch) can get a majority (for the human life amendment),' Mrs. Pilpel said.
'All the polls show that 80 percent of the American people favor making abortion available for a variety of reasons other than to save the life of the women.'
