Abortion Clinics

A comprehensive study of abortion in America underscores a striking change in the landscape, with ever-fewer pregnant women choosing abortion and those who do increasingly opting to avoid surgical clinics. The number of abortions has plunged to 1.2 million a year, down 25% since peaking in 1990, according to a report released today -- days before the 35th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion.

Californians might have a sense of deja vu when they vote in November on Proposition 4, a ballot measure that would require doctors to notify a parent or other adult family member before an abortion is performed on a minor. Similar measures were put before the voters in 2005 and 2006 and lost by slim margins both times.

A bomb was left in a duffel bag in the parking lot of a clinic in Austin where abortions are performed, but a bomb squad safely detonated it. An employee found the package at the Austin Women's Health Center, authorities said. The device "was configured in such a way to cause serious bodily injury or death," said David Carter, assistant chief of the Austin Police Department.

Abortion providers will face new regulations for their clinics and new restrictions on teaching sex education classes under a bill Gov. Matt Blunt signed into law in Jefferson City. The measure places more abortion clinics under government oversight by classifying them as ambulatory surgical centers. Planned Parenthood has said the law could force it to spend as much as $2 million to remodel one of its clinics and halt medical abortions at another site.

A man accused of trying to bomb a clinic where abortions are performed pleaded guilty in Austin to attempted use of a destructive device. Paul Ross Evans, 27, remained in federal custody awaiting sentencing and faces up to 40 years in prison with the plea agreement. He was indicted on multiple charges and could have been sentenced to life in prison if convicted. Evans was arrested in April after a bomb was found in the parking lot of the Austin Women's Health Center.

For years, Portuguese women seeking an abortion crossed over the border to Spain, where Yolanda Hernandez awaited. Now, Hernandez is coming to them. In the abortion business for nearly three decades, Hernandez is opening Portugal's first private abortion clinic. Sitting on the top of a hill just off an important Lisbon thoroughfare, Avenida da Liberdade, this imposing white building is no back-alley basement.

A federal judge in Kansas City temporarily blocked a new state abortion law after Planned Parenthood said the law would harm women by drastically reducing the number of clinics available to provide abortions. The law, which was scheduled to take effect today, would put more abortion clinics under state supervision by categorizing them as outpatient surgery centers, requiring them to meet specific state building, staffing and health standards.

The building permits were issued to Gemini Office Development. The sign at the construction site said Gemini Health Center. But as he watched the installation of bulletproof windows and security cameras at the office space in Aurora, Ill., a worker began to get suspicious. He told his priest, and the priest went to an anti-abortion group. And late last week, the protesters went to work.

A first-trimester surgical abortion takes about two minutes. After, patients at the Planned Parenthood clinic here walk down a dimly lighted hall to a small, spare recovery room, where they rest in recliners, a box of tissues by each chair. Most are cleared to go home after 15 minutes. Thousands of women have safely ended pregnancies at this clinic since it opened in 1987. Conservative lawmakers in Missouri say abortion patients deserve better.

An Illinois city may continue to block the opening of a Planned Parenthood clinic while officials investigate whether the abortion-rights group lied to obtain its building permits, a federal judge ruled Thursday. Planned Parenthood used the name Gemini Office Development in applying for permits to build the $7.5-million clinic in Aurora. As recently as March, the organization used the Gemini name on a permit application and added: "Tenant is not determined . . . unknown at this time."