WASHINGTON -- Three days before legislation on the partial-birth abortion ban came to the Senate floor, Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., was confident. He was sure the legislation -- in the works for the past eight years and twice vetoed by President Clinton -- stood a solid chance of passage with a different Congress and president who had already vowed to sign it.

"I don't think they have the votes to stop it," the senator told group of Catholic reporters in a March 7 teleconference.

Santorum, who introduced the legislation, expected it would get votes "in the mid 60s or low 60s."

And after three days of emotionally charged debate, the senators seemed to stay true to their initial feelings on the issue, voting 64-33 to pass it.

The House is expected to easily pass similar legislation this spring.

The bill prohibits doctors from committing an "overt act" designed to kill a partially delivered fetus and includes an exemption in cases where the procedure is necessary to save the life of the mother.

During the debate, supporters described the procedure as barbaric and inhumane while opponents decried a ban on the procedure as unconstitutional and a means to "criminalize abortions."

The Senators voted against several proposed amendments to the legislation but in a 52-46 vote they passed a nonbinding resolution endorsing Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, and saying it secured an "important constitutional right."

Santorum predicted the resolution, which was also voted on in 1999 and passed with a 51-47 vote, would also get the votes this year, but he said the Roe language would most likely be deleted from the final bill before being sent to President Bush.

Other defeated amendments included one from Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., to allow the partial-birth procedure if two physicians verified that the woman's physical health would be seriously threatened by a continued pregnancy. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., proposed that the procedure be allowed if only one physician certified the pregnancy's danger to the woman's health.

Durbin's proposal was defeated 60-38; Feinstein's lost 60-35.

Durbin told his colleagues that his proposal was "reasonable middle ground" on an issue that is dividing the country as deeply as slavery did in the 19th century. But opponents said it would not really limit the partial-birth abortion procedure and would leave too much to the discretion of the physician.

The Senate also rejected, in a 56-42 vote, a proposal by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., to send the bill to the Judiciary Committee. She wanted the bill rewritten to address constitutional issues she said were raised by the Supreme Court three years ago when it struck down a Nebraska law on the partial-birth abortion ban.

The court ruled that partial-birth abortion was protected under the Roe vs. Wade decision and also said a ban against the procedure was unconstitutional because it didn't provide an exception for the safety of the mother.

Santorum said the new legislation directly addresses the constitutional problems put forward in the vaguely-worded Nebraska case, Stenberg vs. Carhart, by including pages of medical findings proving that "partial-birth abortion is never necessary to preserve the health of a woman" and it also "poses serious risks to a woman's health (and) lies outside the standard of care."

Opponents of the current legislation have already likened it to "the start of the rollback of Roe vs. Wade." They also stress that it doesn't answer the constitutional questions addressed in the Supreme Court's previous ruling against the partial-birth abortion ban and therefore they intend to take it to court.

But that's a fight that Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, welcomes.

"This measure will ultimately make its way to the Supreme Court," he said, vowing to aggressively defend it.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, is likewise willing to see the issue come before the Supreme Court again.

He noted that there is plenty of support for the partial-birth abortion ban, beginning with President Bush, who asked lawmakers during his State of the Union address "to protect infants at the very hour of their birth and end the practice of partial-birth abortion.'' Johnson also cited a January Gallup poll that found 70 percent of the public in favor of the ban.

According to Johnson, "five Supreme Court justices said that partial-birth abortion is protected by Roe vs. Wade," and 33 senators, who just voted against the ban, agreed.