30 years after Roe vs. Wade, the abortion battle still rages

January 20, 2003

30 years after Roe vs. Wade, the abortion battle still rages
___By Barbara Neff
___Religion News Service
___WASHINGTON--At the 30th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the future of legalized abortion is poised to regain the national spotlight.
___Although the Supreme Court's decision upholding abortion in certain circumstances still stands, anti-abortion advocates expect the new Republican-controlled Congress and President Bush to lead the fight to substantially restrict the right to abortion.
___Bush declared Sunday, Jan. 19, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day and underscored the administration's championing of "compassionate alternatives" to abortion.
___"Abortion is one of the areas most seriously impacted by the (November 2002) elections," said Peter Rubin, professor of constitutional law at the Georgetown University Law Center.
___While few believe enough votes can be found in Congress to pass an outright ban on abortion, significant inroads could be made over the next two years to restrict abortion.
___"There's a lot of hope in the movement right now," said Cathy Cleaver, director of planning and information for the Pro-Life Secretariat of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
___"The optimism of the pro-life side is exactly why we are conducting a major mobilization campaign," countered Elizabeth Cavendish, legal director of the National Abortion Rights Action League Pro-Choice America.
___Advocates on both sides of the issue are focusing on several bills passed by the Republican-led House of Representatives in the last two years that stalled in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
___The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which passed the House in April 2001, would recognize a fetus as a crime victim, separate from the mother. Rubin said the bill is "designed to place in federal law for the first time the idea that a fetus is a whole person." He said the law wouldn't immediately affect the Roe ruling, but could have some implications in the long term for how courts define abortion rights.
___"It's clear you can enhance the punishment for crimes against women that cause them to miscarry" without creating rights for fetuses, Rubin said. "Most states already increase the punishment for violence against pregnant women. I don't think (this bill) is about reason so much as a rhetorical and political statement about opposition to abortion."
___Some pro-abortion groups believe similar statements are being made by other abortion-related bills.
___For example, the Child Custody Protection Act, passed by the House last April, would generally make it illegal to transport a minor seeking an abortion across state lines to avoid parental notification or consent provisions. And the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, passed in the House last fall, would allow health-care providers to refuse to perform or participate in abortions without losing government funding. Many states have passed similar laws.
___Although a bill to ban a late-term abortion procedure called by opponents "partial-birth" abortion was passed by the House last summer 274-151, similar bills twice were vetoed by President Clinton, and the Supreme Court has ruled a Nebraska statute banning the procedure was unconstitutional.
___Rubin predicted all these proposals now would be passed by Congress and signed into law by Bush. Others are not as convinced.
___Cleaver said the "partial-birth" abortion ban "is the only abortion legislation we can be comfortable we have the votes for."
___The proposed bill differs from the Nebraska ban the Supreme Court invalidated, Cleaver said. In its 2000 decision in Stenberg vs. Carhart, the Supreme Court found that statute placed an undue burden on a woman's right to make an abortion decision because its language was so vague it could possibly prohibit additional procedures. The court also said such a statute must include an exception from the ban if the woman's health would otherwise be jeopardized.
___The proposed ban contains a more precise definition of the procedure than did the Nebraska statute, Cleaver said. "And it includes a whole bunch of congressional findings about how this type of abortion is never needed to save the life of a mother."
___One thing is certain: The ultimate fate of legalized abortion will be played out in the courts.
___Rubin predicts the 2002 elections may cause the greatest and most long-lasting effects in the area of federal judicial appointments by Bush. "There's likely to be a substantial change in the makeup of the federal courts of appeals and the Supreme Court," he said.
___Bush's recent re-nominations of Judges Charles Pickering and Priscilla Owen to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, for example, drew immediate opposition from groups supporting abortion rights, including the National Organization for Women and Planned Parenthood.
___Both sides agree that the battle is to get the matter before the Supreme Court.
___There, three of the justices are more than 70 years old--Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 78, and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, 72, and John Paul Stevens, 82. The high court's position on abortion could change if either O'Connor or Stevens, who both voted with the majority in a 1992 ruling reaffirming a woman's right to an abortion, were replaced by an appointee of the anti-abortion Bush.

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