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WASHINGTON - Losing a procedural vote to make contraceptives more widely available, Senate Democrats continued attempts to chip away at a bill that would outlaw a medical procedure that critics call partial birth abortion.

Democrats' efforts to amend the bill to expand government health care for low-income women failed Tuesday on a procedural vote.

The same vote also turned back proposals to make emergency contraceptives — known as the morning-after pill — available in hospital emergency rooms for rape victims and require insurance companies to include birth control pills in their prescription drug coverage.

Murray and Sen. Harry Reid , D-Nev., offered the proposals to provide greater access to contraceptives and pregnancy-related services, including a requirement for health plans to provide contraceptive coverage if they offered a prescription drug benefit.

Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., put the cost of expanded health insurance for low-income pregnant women at $1 billion, and said Republicans would address the issue later this spring when they write a budget.

But he said he opposed wider distribution of emergency contraception, saying, "I believe that life begins at conception and drugs that would prevent a conceived embryo from being implanted, I would not support that."

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[ 12 March 2003: Message edited by: MJ ]

[ 21 March 2003: Message edited by: prairieriotgrrrl ]