Senate Passes Civil Rights Bill with Abortion-Limiting Amendment
WASHINGTON (AP) _ A four-year battle to win Senate passage of a sweeping civil rights bill culminated in a decisive bipartisan victory tempered for some supporters by an amendment putting new limits on abortion rights.
″This is a big day for civil rights in the United States of America,″ Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said Thursday after the Senate voted 75-14 to pass the Civil Rights Restoration Act.
″While the Danforth (abortion) amendment was a disappointing setback, there was an overwhelming bipartisan rejection of the Reagan administration’s attempts to weaken the four major civil rights bills,″ said Ralph Neas, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
The restoration act is intended to overturn a 1984 Supreme Court ruling that scaled back the scope of federal civil rights laws barring discrimination by recipients of federal funds.
The civil rights conference of 200 member groups was the major force behind the act, which says that if any part of an institution receives federal money, the entire institution is prohibited from discriminating against women, minorities, the aged and the disabled.
The act had been buried in the Senate by filibusters and other obstructionist tactics since it was first introduced in 1984.
That was the year the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Grove City (Pa.) College that federal anti-discrimination rules applied only to specific programs or activities receiving federal aid and not to entire institutions.
The decision shocked the civil rights community and galvanized lawmakers who said congressional intent had always been to provide broad rather than piecemeal protection against discrimination.
Conservatives argued to the end that the restoration act would be an instrument of government intrusion going far beyond previous application of civil rights laws.
Just before the vote, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, read a veto threat from President Reagan saying that the restoration act, even with the abortion amendment, was unacceptable.
But Kennedy dismissed the threat, pointing to the coming elections and the 27 Republicans who joined 48 Democrats in supporting the bill.
″There’s not the slightest doubt in my mind that he would sign it,″ Kennedy said.
Almost overshadowing the civil rights bill was the 56-39 victory of the amendment introduced by Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., to override 1975 regulations aimed at preventing discrimination against women who have abortions or want them.
The U.S. Catholic Conference and the National Right To Life Committee, among others, hailed the amendment’s passage.
Monsignor Daniel F. Hoye, general secretary of the U.S. Catholic Conference, said the provision ensures that institutions opposed to abortion ″will not be coerced under the guise of civil rights into paying for something which they believe to be morally wrong.″
Abortion rights supporters said they would try to defeat the amendment when the civil rights bill is considered by the House later this year. Kate Michelman, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, condemned Danforth for waging a ″campaign of disinformation.″
Eleanor Smeal, feminist leader and former National Organization for Women president, noted Democratic defections on the amendment and said, ″The Democrats pay so much lip service to us that we’ve got whisker burn.″
The Danforth amendment states that nothing in Title IX, the law barring sex discrimination in education, ″shall be construed to require or prohibit any person, or public or private entity, to provide or pay for any benefit or service ... related to abortion.″
The amendment would supersede Title IX regulations that say schools receiving federal funds cannot discriminate against women who have abortions and must, if they have comprehensive health plans, cover pregnancy, childbirth and abortion.
Danforth had argued that the combination of Title IX’s existing regulations and the new civil rights act could produce future court decisions forcing schools or hospitals to perform and pay for abortions.
Opponents tryificant amendment accepted by the Senate would exclude victims of AIDS and other communicable diseases from laws protecting the disabled if they pose a direct threat to workplace health and safety or are unable to perform their jobs. The provision mirrors a recent Supreme Court decision.
The Senate did turn back several amendments advanced by conservatives. Among them:
-An attempt to expand the Title IX exemption for schools ″controlled by″ religious organizations to those ″closely identified with the tenets of″ a religious group.
-An attempt to substitute the narrower bill favored by the Reagan administration. It would have provided institution-wide protection against sex discrimination in education under Title IX, while keeping other civil rights laws limited to specific programs or activities receiving federal aid.
-An attempt by Sen. Gordon Humphrey, R-N.H., to exempt more small businesses from requirements that they make their establishments physically accessible to the handicapped.