From Saturday's Guardian (UK - because the story isn't being covered in the American press...yet), "Fury at Bush's civil rights policing of abortion ban":

The Bush administration has given the US justice department's civil rights division the job of enforcing a contentious new ban on late-term abortions, it emerged yesterday.

The move has provoked furious accusations that the White House is perverting the government's role in promoting civil rights.

In the past, the civil rights division has been instrumental in ensuring black Americans have the right to vote and equal access to housing, while prosecuting hate crimes against minorities.

The ban on late abortions, which was signed into law by President George Bush on Wednesday, has become a new legal battleground in the conflict between American liberals and the religious right.

Since the signing, three judges around the country have ordered injunctions that have blocked its enforcement - paving the way for an eventual showdown in the supreme court.

The justice department, under the leadership of the conservative attorney general, John Ashcroft, has vowed to press forward with the enforcement of the law, promising in a statement released this week "to strongly defend the law prohibiting partial-birth abortions using every resource necessary".