Bush ‘looks forward’ to banning birth abortion in law

US President George W Bush said he looked forward to signing into law newly passed legislation to end the “abhorrent practice” known by critics as partial birth abortion, thereby giving anti-abortionists a victory that has eluded them for a decade.

Abortion rights advocates said they would go to court to stop what they said was a dangerous incursion against the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalising abortion.

The Senate voted 64-34 on Tuesday to ban a form of abortion, carried out in the second or third trimester, in which a foetus is partially delivered before being aborted. Mr Bush has urged Congress to get the legislation to his desk.