Abortion rights advocates in the Senate are seeking to overturn a longstanding ban on abortions in military facilities.

The U. S. Senate Armed Services Committee passed an amendment to repeal the prohibition as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2011. The panel voted 15-12 for the amendment before sending the overall bill to the full Senate with an 18-10 roll call.

The defense authorization bill approved in the House of Representatives does not include the measure repealing the ban. If the Senate bill includes the provision, its fate in the final version would be negotiated in a conference committee of members of both houses.

The amendment, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Roland Burris of Illinois, would eliminate a ban on elective privately funded abortions in military health care facilities that has been in place for the last 14 years. Burris’ proposal would not affect the prohibition that exists on publicly funded abortions at armed services hospitals.

The ban on privately funded abortions, which was first implemented in its current form in 1988 under President Reagan, was repealed during the first Clinton administration, but Congress re-established it in 1996. Efforts since then to eliminate the prohibition — which permits exceptions if a woman’s life is threatened or the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest — have been unsuccessful.

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