TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/012389/01238900.002

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 3.5 KB | 71 lines

                                                                                LAW, Page 55

Pro-Choicers Gird for Battle


The court prepares to hear a key abortion case


    After completing their medical-history forms, patients at
the Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Ill., are asked an
unusual question: Would they be willing to write a letter
thanking the nine U.S. Supreme Court Justices for the right to
have an abortion? Few refuse. Says Lori, 30, a businesswoman
who terminated her pregnancy there earlier this month: "It
really makes me mad that they are trying to outlaw it."

    For months, pro-abortion advocates have been desperately
trying to harness the anger of women like Lori. The reason:
they fear that the high court, with its newly conservative
majority, may tamper with the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which
legalized abortion nationwide in 1973. Last week the court
seemed to take a tentative step in that direction by announcing
that it will hear Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. The
case involves a 1986 Missouri abortion law that would have put
a number of obstacles in the way of a woman seeking abortion.

    Defenders of abortion rights have good reason to be
concerned. Says Duke University Law Professor Walter Dellinger:
"This is not a case that needs to be heard unless the court
wants to review Roe v. Wade." Since the court's last major
abortion ruling in 1986, Justice Lewis Powell, who was part of
the pro-choice majority, has been replaced by Justice Anthony
Kennedy. Choice advocates feel Kennedy would not have been
appointed unless President Reagan believed he was willing to
strike down Roe. The increasingly vocal right-to-life
supporters, smelling possible victory for their cause, were
delighted by the court's decision to hear the Missouri case.

    Galvanized by the threat to Roe, pro-choice groups have
embarked on an all-out lobbying effort. The National
Organization for Women is planning a huge march in Washington on
April 9. The National Abortion Rights Action League is
organizing a drive to send a million postcards to the high
court. Another tactic is to elicit a large outpouring of
friend-of-court briefs from groups like bar associations, civil
rights organizations, Senators and Congressmen, and
population-control organizations.

    The choice forces also hope to persuade the American Medical
Association to file a brief on the medical advantages of legal
abortions. Advocates of such operations see them as the only
safe alternative to often fatal clandestine methods, symbolized
by the coat-hanger emblems on many pro-choice posters. The view
that abortion at least does not harm women got a boost last week
from a surprising source: Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who,
after a year of study, found no proof that women obtaining legal
abortions suffered a greater incidence of physical or
psychological harm than women who brought their pregnancies to
term.

    Some critics of the pro-choice strategy argue that efforts
to lobby the court may do more harm than good. "A letter-writing
campaign is a wonderful thing to do if you're trying to persuade
Congress or the Missouri legislature," says an experienced
Supreme Court lawyer. "It's not what you do to the Supreme Court
of the United States." But NOW President Molly Yard counters
that "the court is influenced by public opinion, as is every
other political institution in this country." The truth of that
claim, like the future of abortion rights, may be put to a
decisive test this term.