Despite Carnahan's oft-repeated promise to sign a more narrowly drawn "partial-birth" abortion ban, Ashcroft used Carnahan's veto of the Infant's Protection Act to tar the governor throughout the Senate campaign. In one of his direct-mail fundraising letters, sent to potential donors in November 1999, Ashcroft wrote, "My opponent, Mel Carnahan, is one of America's leading advocates of partial birth abortion."

By March 2000, Ashcroft had refined his message in a later direct-mail missive: "Mel Carnahan has been a leading figure fighting to keep the barbaric partial birth abortion procedure legal, while I've been a leading sponsor of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban in the U.S. Senate."

In the summer months leading up to the election, Ashcroft was airing radio spots that took Carnahan to task for commuting the death sentence of a triple-murderer at the behest of the pope, comparing the commutation to Carnahan's veto of the infant protection act. "The pope opposes partial-birth abortion," says a woman in the spot.

"But Carnahan refused to show mercy for innocent life," an angry male voice replies.

The ad goes on to note the largesse bestowed on Carnahan's campaign by reproductive rights groups, calling the governor "the top recipient in the nation of money from Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Rights Action League."

"Innocent victims suffer," says the woman.

"But to Mel Carnahan," the man chimes in, "it's all politics."

On the law's provision for the defense of the fetus by deadly force, Ashcroft had little, if anything, to say. (This reporter's search came up empty.) Yet it would be hard for him to deny familiarity with the text of the one-and-a-half page bill. In his October 1999 speech, he notes that the language of his own Senate Partial Birth Abortion Ban differs from that of the Missouri law. As the former attorney general of the Show-Me State, one would assume that he understood the references to the "general liability" and "defense of others" sections of the criminal code.

Though Missouri's Infant's Protection Act remains under injunction by U.S. District Judge Scott O. Wright, last month state Judge Robert H. Dierker Jr. of the St. Louis Circuit took on the interpretation of the law at the request of the federal court. It took Dierker 54 pages to conclude that the law prohibited only late-term partial-birth abortions, and that the law would not allow for lethal force against abortion providers. Privately, reproductive rights advocates refer to his opinion as "a mess"; publicly, some, like Paula Gianino, president of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, prefer to term it "an interim opinion," and plan on waiting for clarification.

The case is now back at the federal appeals court, and Planned Parenthood has filed a motion to amend Dierker's judgment. Should this law or another like it make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, says Michelman, it would be up to Ashcroft, should he be confirmed, not only to enforce it but to interpret the court's decision for other government agencies.

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