Next week, he will sign into law the first federal restriction since the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973. The new law will outlaw a procedure that opponents have labeled "partial-birth abortion."

Bush has never called for a ban on all abortions.

"I don't think the culture has changed to the extent that the American people or the Congress would totally ban abortions," Bush said in answer to a question at a news conference.

To Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood, which advocates abortion rights, "That's just code for 'I can't outlaw all abortion yet, but I want to.' "

Sandy Rios of Concerned Women for America, a conservative group that opposes abortion, says "it's possible" that all abortions could be banned in a second Bush term. "I don't think we're there yet, but we are moving in that direction," she says.

Both sides in the debate — and half of Americans surveyed by a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll — read Bush the same way.

The prohibition that Bush is expected to sign bans a type of abortion in which a late-term fetus is partially removed and the skull crushed. The Senate's only physician member, Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, calls the procedure "barbaric."

Opponents contend the legislation could be interpreted to end other, more common abortions, including those done in the second trimester of pregnancy. Abortion rights activists say the procedure the president plans to ban is sometimes the only way to end a pregnancy without jeopardizing the woman's ability to bear children in the future. The measure that Bush will sign does not include an exemption to protect the health of the woman.

Abortion-rights advocates say they'll try to mobilize voters around the issue next year. They believe Bush will fill the next vacancy on the Supreme Court with a justice who opposes abortion, which would tip the balance. The high court's last major abortion decision, which threw out a Nebraska ban on the procedure that Congress has banned, was decided on a 5-4 vote.

At least one Democratic presidential candidate is pressing the issue. Retired general Wesley Clark warned Tuesday that "Congress and our citizens would not — and should not — tolerate a return to the dark days before Roe vs. Wade."

A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll of 1,006 adults last weekend found that 68% support the ban on the soc-called partial-birth abortions. But the poll found Americans much more closely divided on the question of a more complete ban: 48% identified themselves as "pro-choice" and 45% as "pro-life."

But the poll indicated that the abortion issue may not have much potency in next year's presidential election: 50% said they believe Bush wants to ban all abortions; 58% said his position would have no effect on whether they vote to re-elect him.

In the 2000 campaign, Bush said he opposed abortion and pledged to promote a "culture of life." Interviews with people right after they voted on Election Day found that more than a quarter of the people who support legal abortion voted for him anyway.

Congress has debated the newly banned procedure since 1995. President Clinton vetoed similar measures twice because they did not include an exception to protect the health of the mother.

Abortion opponents are hoping for more victories soon. Republican congressional leaders plan votes on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which would make it a crime to kill or injure a fetus, and on a bill that would require parents to be notified if a child sought an abortion on a military base.

On another issue important to abortion opponents, Bush said he agreed with the decision of his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo, a severely brain-damaged Florida woman, after courts allowed her husband to order her feeding tube removed.

"I believe my brother made the right decision," the president said.