In a victory for Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson, the Legislature's nonpartisan legal adviser has concluded that the Crime Victims Reform Initiative sponsored by Wilson as part of his 1990 gubernatorial campaign does not endanger a woman's right to abortion.
That concern was raised in July by Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, a Democratic candidate for governor, after the U.S. Supreme Court gave states more power to regulate abortion.
Van de Kamp argued that subordinating California's constitutional right to privacy to the U.S. Constitution, as the crime initiative would do, might endanger a woman's right to abortion because privacy, one of the underpinnings of California abortion rights, is not explicit in the federal document.
But the opinion this week by the legislative counsel of California lends support to Van de Kamp's critics, including Wilson, who contend that the attorney general's objection to the crime initiative is politically motivated.
"There is no indicia of intent in (the) language or anywhere else throughout the proposed initiative to affect existing procreative (privacy) rights presently recognized under Section 1 of Article I of the California Constitution," wrote Deputy Legislative Counsel Maureen S. Dunn.
"Thus we are of the opinion that, if adopted, the proposed (initiative) would not affect the privacy rights of women who obtain abortions in California."
There was some small vindication for Van de Kamp in the legislative counsel's opinion.
"However," said Dunn in her final paragraph, "the matter is not free from doubt and, in the final analysis, the courts may look to ballot arguments and analyses to make a final determination."
Backed by former federal judge Shirley Hufstedler and by some legal scholars at UC Berkeley, USC and Harvard University, Van de Kamp argues that the U.S. Supreme Court's recent Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services decision may portend the eventual reversal of the high court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationally.
Thus, Van de Kamp says, the crime initiative creates more risk than he is comfortable with that California women might lose the protection now afforded by the state's Constitution.
The attorney general said Thursday: "The (legislative counsel's) opinion does not deal with the question of what would happen to California women's reproductive rights if the U.S. Supreme Court reverses Roe vs. Wade."
