I have a 98 as well, and I was wondering the same thing. I seached the forums and it looks to me like, from what I found, that there are no connections at the bumpers, which is what I was worried about. It looks like the mechanism is somewhere under the center console or the seat. It seems that everyone seems to think that if you do anything that would activate the air bags, then you'll need them to.
Do a search in the forums for Air bags, and there will be plenty of info and opinions about this.