by Todd Richmond ¦ Associated Press ¦ 12 December 2007

Abortion rights advocates declared victory after the state Assembly narrowly gave a preliminary OK to a bill that would mandate emergency contraception for rape victims. But the fight is far from finished.

Thanks to a procedural maneuver by Republicans who control the Assembly, the chamber must vote again in January to ship the bill back to the state Senate. Supporters say that vote is a given and the bill is a done deal.

"Good win," Sen. Judy Robson, a Beloit Democrat who helped write the bill, declared Wednesday.

But opponents say the interlude will give them time to launch one last lobbying effort to defeat the measure. And if that doesn't work, they might sue.

"This is not over by any means," said Peggy Hamill, state director of Pro-Life Wisconsin.

The bill would require Wisconsin emergency rooms to give information about the so-called morning-after pill to rape victims and dispense the drug at their request.

Hospitals in nine other states - California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, South Carolina and Washington - already dispense the pill at rape victims' request, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health.

Supporters say the bill would spare victims the added trauma of pregnancy. Critics contend it can prevent embryos from implanting in wombs and amount to abortion - a flash point for Republicans.

The Democratic-controlled state Senate passed the measure in May and kicked it over to the Assembly. Three Assembly Republicans broke ranks and signed on as co-sponsors.

The body narrowly approved the measure, 56-41, with slightly revised technical language just before midnight Tuesday. Democrats and their Republican allies beat back three GOP amendments that would have allowed hospitals and their employees to refuse to give the drug on moral or religious grounds and required parents of children under 16 be notified before they receive it.

In a symbolic protest, Republicans blocked a final reading of the bill and delayed until at least Jan. 16 the final vote to send it back to the Senate. That chamber must approve the changes before the bill goes to Gov. Jim Doyle for his signature.

Doyle, a Democrat, backs the bill.

"At this point, it's going to happen," said Kelda Helen Roys, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin. "It's just wonderful to see we were really able to beat the odds. At the beginning of the year, I had a lot of people, political insiders, telling me this could never be done."

Hamill said Pro-Life Wisconsin is "disappointed" with Republicans who sided with Democrats on the bill. She promised her organization would lobby lawmakers to kill the measure with the January vote and enlist constituents, pastors and bishops to do it.

If the bill gets out of the Assembly and lands on Doyle's desk, the organization will urge him not to sign it, Hamill said. The bill violates the state constitution because it does not permit hospitals or employees to refuse the drug on moral or religious grounds, she said.

Robson called Pro-Life Wisconsin "extreme."

"Why they would want to interfere with a woman getting good medical care is beyond me," she said.

John Murray, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, declined to comment on how the January vote might play out, saying only "we expect discussion."

Rep. Terry Musser of Black River Falls, one of the Republicans who sided with Democrats, said it wasn't fair to go on punishing sexual assault victims. He predicted emotions would cool and the bill would pass in January with an even stronger vote.

Pro-Life Wisconsin will need stellar lobbying to get 56 lawmakers to flip-flop, said Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, the bill's main sponsor in the Assembly.

"They can do and claim and threaten anything they want to," Pocan said, "but it doesn't mean it's based in any reality."