The state Legislature passed a largely symbolic measure Tuesday aimed at ensuring women will be able to continue getting legal abortions until the fetus is able to live outside the womb. Gov. Judd Gregg said he would veto the bill. After a brief debate, the House voted 200-135 for the bill, passed by the House earlier and amended by the Senate. The margin was shy of the two-thirds that would be needed to override Gregg's promised veto. The key vote in the Senate last week, 14-10, also was short of a two-thirds margin. The bill may not reach Gregg until next week, but he repeated Tuesday that he'll veto it. Under the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, abortion is legal and widely available in New Hampshire despite three 19th-century anti-abortion statutes that have not been enforced. The National Abortion Rights Action League considers the bill pro-choice advocates' best chance for abortion rights legislation in the country this year. But Peg Dobbie, the group's New Hampshire spokeswoman, said it would be a ``long shot'' for the Legislature to override a veto. Though not giving up hope, she said pro-choice advocates are now focusing on the November election. ``We plan to go out and elect more pro-choice legislators so we can be veto-proof,'' she said. The original House bill called for no restrictions on abortion until the 25th week of pregnancy. The Senate changed that to allow unrestricted abortion until the woman's doctor determined that the fetus could live outside the womb on its own. Both versions would allow abortions after fetal viability to protect the life or health of the mother or if the fetus has a life-threatening physical or congenital abnormality. Gregg believes the bill would foster ``doctor-shopping'' because doctors will differ on what constitutes viability, spokesman Brian Grip said. Gregg reiterated his stand that abortion should be limited to instances where the mother's life is in danger, there is a serious problem with the fetus or the pregnancy stemmed from rape or incest. State Rep. Thomas Gage, head of the Judiciary Committee, supported the amended bill, saying it set a ``medical standard in place of a political one ... rather than a hard line drawn in statute by black letter.'' But state Rep. Shawn Jasper said the medical community disagrees about when a fetus can survive outside a mother's womb and urged defeat of the bill. Elsewhere Tuesday: _In the Nebraska Legislature, anti-abortion lawmakers succeeded in keeping alive a proposal that would require a 24-hour waiting period before a woman has an abortion. They moved it to the second stage of floor consideration without allowing opportunity for amendment. _A Louisiana state senator introduced an anti-abortion bill that provides exceptions for saving the mother's life during birth, but allows no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. ``Just as being raped and becoming pregnant is a traumatic experience, so is aborting a child,'' said state Sen. Mike Cross. _In Minnesota, a second Senate committee rejected a measure that would prohibit most abortions in the state. The 1990 legislative session tentatively is scheduled to adjourn next week. _Voters in Ann Arbor, Mich., declared their university town a ``zone of reproductive freedom.'' Voters also approved on Monday a token $5 fine on abortion, should state or federal laws ever ban the procedure.
