'Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'' is not just fancy handwriting on yellowed parchment for Cincinnati. Next year, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center will show the world how our city led the crusade to abolish slavery.

Maybe in another 150 years, we can open a museum to honor the local heroes who have crusaded against another scourge that has smothered "life'' the way slavery crushed "liberty.''

I'm talking about abortion.

Cincinnati is home to Dr. John Willke and his wife, Barbara - founders of Right to Life and the "abolitionists'' of anti-abortion.

It's also home to Congressman Steve Chabot, who has finally managed to pass a ban on the most grisly and revolting "procedure'' for killing unborn children: partial-birth abortion.

Those who carefully cushion the painful truth about abortion in padded words like "choice'' may be unable to see the obvious similarities between abortion and slavery.

Both have been protected by the law and approved by society. Both have been defended by political leaders who pander to powerful interest groups. Both have been opposed on moral grounds, mainly by people of religious faith. And both are an insult to human dignity and decency.

The battle over slavery tore the nation apart; so has the battle over abortion. Each has been the paramount moral issue of its time. Public opinion was turned against slavery by the barbaric treatment of slaves, who were lynched, branded, whipped and torn apart from their families, like something less than human.

And public opinion has been turned against abortion by partial-birth abortion. As more Americans discovered exactly what it is, support for abortion slid to a record low tide. The death's head of "choice'' has been unmasked by the cruel murder called partial-birth abortion.

The pro-abortion lobby insists it is rare, seldom used late in pregnancy, and only needed in cases where the mother may be at risk.

"That's just inaccurate,'' Chabot said. Congressional hearings showed that as many as 6,000 partial-birth abortions are done each year, he said, mostly on healthy mothers and babies that are late in the second-trimester - the fifth or sixth month of pregnancy. Many babies are killed just inches from their first breath.

Even a clinical description is shocking. A summary of Chabot's bill says it "pulls the living child out of the mother by the leg until only the head is left inside; stabs the child in the base of the skull, and sucks out the brain with a vacuum; (then) pulls the now-dead child out of the mother.''

In hearings, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons said, "We can conceive of no circumstances in which it would be needed to save the life or preserve the health of a mother.''

Twice, Congress passed a ban. Twice, it was vetoed by President Clinton. President Bush says he is eager to sign Chabot's bill, which passed the Senate by two-thirds and the House by 282 to 139.

Finally, America is ready to abolish infanticide. But I wonder about the one-third of Senators and 139 House members who voted to preserve it. How do they sleep?

Maybe a museum can answer that question 150 years from now.