States Step Up Fight on Abortion

The debate unfolds as the Senate prepares to vote on Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr., a federal appellate judge. As a Reagan administration lawyer, Alito laid out a plan to overturn Roe vs. Wade. In his confirmation hearings this month, he declined to call the case "settled law," suggesting that he might be willing to reverse or modify it.

If confirmed, Alito would succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who supports abortion rights. He would join another conservative justice appointed by President Bush: John G. Roberts Jr., who was confirmed as chief justice in September.

Even if Alito and Roberts prove to be staunch antiabortion votes, a bare majority of justices would still support the core principle of a woman's right to end an unwanted pregnancy. But a retirement or illness among the more liberal justices could change that balance.

In anticipation of that day, antiabortion activists have been focusing their efforts on establishing policy at the state level.

Louisiana sets out that "the unborn child is a human being from the time of conception." The Nebraska Legislature has said that it "expressly deplore[s] the destruction of unborn human lives." Pennsylvania seeks "to extend to the unborn the equal protection of the laws." Utah, Missouri and Illinois are among several other states with similar language in their constitutions or statutes.

Such statements are merely philosophical; they don't have the force of law. But at least a dozen states have criminal laws banning abortion. They can't be enforced as long as Roe vs. Wade remains binding. In theory, though, they could take effect immediately upon a reversal, subjecting abortion providers to penalties ranging from 12 months' hard labor in Alabama to 20 years' imprisonment in Rhode Island.

"What the public doesn't realize is that the building blocks are already in place to re-criminalize abortion if Roe is overturned," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York.

She and other abortion rights activists predict that abortion would remain legal on the East and West coasts and in a few states in between -- among them Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada and New Mexico. They expect that at least 19 states across the Midwest and South would ban abortion.

Abortion opponents say such predictions are just scare tactics.