Unlike last year, when lawmakers considered seven abortion-related bills, the 2005 Legislature apparently will remain silent on the conservative touchstone issue.

Before the session even started, Provo Republican Sen. Curt Bramble abandoned a bill meant to resolve any outstanding issues lingering from his controversial 2004 bill to block public funding of abortion.

Last May, afraid of running afoul of Senate Bill 68, the University of Utah and Intermountain Health Care hospitals changed their policies to stop terminating pregnancies for pregnant women whose babies had fatal fetal defects. The Utah Health Department issued an administrative ruling late last year that established accounting methods so hospitals can separate their funding and continue terminating such pregnancies.

Bramble says that rule makes any legislative fix unnecessary. He still questions whether the hospitals needed to turn any mothers away. "It begs the question: Why was there so much controversy last year? If we didn't need to change the law to fix the problem, was it a problem with the law in the first place?"

No other lawmaker has asked legislative attorneys to draft an abortion bill.

Planned Parenthood CEO Karrie Galloway is glad lawmakers are leaving the topic alone. A lawsuit stemming from Bramble's amendments to the state partial birth abortion law is pending.

"I guess nobody wanted to go there this year," Galloway said.