"We are disingenuous? Three out of the last four years the Senate has had similar (anti-abortion) bills before it and failed to act. Sen. Bramble said he would get these two bills before an interim committee (this summer) for a hearing — yet no hearing was held on them. Now he promises action; but who is being disingenuous? Childrens' lives are at stake."

And Karrie Galloway, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Utah, says Bramble and other conservatives in the Legislature are the ones now "grandstanding" by introducing the two bills again.

No "so-called partial-birth abortion" has been performed in Utah in recent memory, Galloway said. And no state tax dollars are, or have gone, to abortions, she adds. Clinics that provide abortions to the poor are reimbursed with federal, not state, tax dollars, she said.

In any case, both issues in the bills are being dealt with in federal law, "which even applies in Utah," she noted.

"The day after President Bush signed the federal partial-birth abortion bill, it was taken to court," she said. And that should end the Utah debate.

True, said Bramble, the federal partial-birth abortion law is in court. But even if no partial-birth abortions are being done in Utah, even if no state monies are used in abortions, the two bills "will prevent any of this from happening in Utah in the future. This is much more than just symbolic," although it is that, too, Bramble said.

Why weren't the two House anti-abortion bills passed the final day of the 2003 Legislature?

That depends on whom you ask.

Mansell said there was no point in bringing the bills up at the last hours because Democratic senators had promised to filibuster them, thereby keeping the Senate from passing other important last-minute work.

Democrats say Republicans lacked the heart to pass measures that weren't really needed and could just expose Utah to another costly abortion lawsuit.

But as the unhappy GOP state convention delegates noted in the Senate recordings, several times during the waning hours senators stopped all debate to "saunter" — waiting for the House to send over priority bills for action. The anti-abortion bills could have been brought up then, they say.

For his part, Bramble admits that there was confusion over which senator was supposed to take responsibility for the House anti-abortion bills and force them to the top of the calendar for debate. "For whatever reason, (the two bills) weren't voted on and time ran out," he says now.