Roe Vs Wade

Singing in praise of reproductive freedom, more than 100 people rallied here Thursday night in a candlelight vigil and march on the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade. The abortion-rights activists were met in the downtown plaza by about two dozen abortion foes, who waved posters depicting bloody fetuses. Some demonstrators exchanged sharp words, but there was no violence.

Re "Roe vs. Wade turns 40," Editorial, Jan. 22 Although there will probably never be a consensus on abortion, it is also clear that two things must happen to advance the debate. First, pro-lifers must accept that all women deserve easy and affordable access to contraceptives. Depriving Planned Parenthood of taxpayer funding or trying to render it ineffective is counterproductive. Second, pro-choice advocates must accept the truth that any procedure that results in expelling a fertilized ova kills a living human organism.

In his first extensive remarks on the issue since the Supreme Court on Monday reaffirmed a woman's right to obtain an abortion, President Bush on Wednesday reiterated his belief that Roe vs. Wade should be overturned. He said, however, that he would not make a Supreme Court nominee's position on abortion a "litmus test" for a seat on the high court.

Forty years ago Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled that women had a constitutional right to an abortion. This one sweeping decision transformed abortion from what was often a secret, illicit and dangerous act, sometimes crudely self-inflicted, into a generally legal and safe procedure. But it also turned abortion, always an emotional issue, into one of society's most divisive. Unlike many landmark Supreme Court cases that have become accepted parts of our culture - such as Brown vs. Board of Education, which declared school segregation unconstitutional, or Loving vs. Virginia, which overturned state bans on interracial marriage - Roe did not lead to a clear national consensus on abortion.

The Supreme Court is likely within the next two years to overturn its 18-year-old decision striking down state laws against abortion, a backer and a foe of legalized abortions said Sunday. Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Robert H. Bork, former judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, spoke on ABC's "This Week With David Brinkley." "Unfortunately, I think Roe vs. Wade will, at least in practical effect, be overturned," Strossen said.

Laura Bush, wife of President-elect George W. Bush, entered the abortion debate Friday and said she does not support overturning the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision that gave women the right to terminate a pregnancy. Laura Bush, in an interview on NBC-TV's "Today" show, appeared to go further than her husband on the issue. "I don't think that it should be overturned," the incoming first lady said when asked about the Roe vs. Wade decision.

Taking up a literal front-line position in the battle over abortion, Operation Rescue is moving its headquarters next door to an abortion clinic--one that employs the woman who was at the center of Roe vs. Wade. "It's a tremendous place. At the killing center, at the gates of hell, is where the church of Jesus Christ needs to be," said the Rev. Flip Benham, Operation Rescue's national director. Employees at A Choice for Women, a clinic that has been offering abortions at 9222 Markville Dr.

South Dakota lawmakers crafted a direct challenge to Roe vs. Wade on Friday, passing a bill that bans abortions -- including in cases of rape or incest -- except for those in which the procedure is deemed necessary to save a woman's life. The sweeping measure, which Republican Gov. Michael Rounds said he was inclined to sign into law, seems certain to face legal challenge. Some abortion opponents say that is precisely the point.

In a bold gamble geared more to politics than the legal process, abortion rights attorneys asked the Supreme Court Thursday to rule quickly and decisively on whether the Roe vs. Wade ruling that established a right to abortion remains the law.

In one of the most intensely watched abortion cases in nearly two decades, the Supreme Court will consider Wednesday whether to adopt a new legal standard that would once again permit states to make most abortions a crime. The justices will hear arguments in a Pennsylvania case in which the state is seeking to enforce a law that places restrictions on a woman's right to abortion, including one requirement that she notify her husband and another that she observe a 24-hour waiting period.

Forty years after the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision struck down laws forbidding abortions, support for a legal right to end a pregnancy has grown, according to new polls released this week. The shift has come largely from increased support for legal abortion among Latinos and blacks, according to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal survey . The survey for the first time found a majority of Americans supporting legal abortion in all or most cases. The shift among African Americans and Latinos could indicate that both population groups, which have strongly supported the Democratic Party in recent years, have begun taking on the party's views on social issues.

Because I wrote a book with "Atheist" in the subtitle and I go on political TV shows to hawk that book, well-groomed meat puppets frequently ask me why politicians like Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry are saying bugnutty Christian stuff. I have an idea why these politicians have gone all religious, but I haven't found a way to explain it in a sound bite, which is why I'm writing this. I think the whole problem comes down to the word "Christian" and what it has come to mean in my lifetime.

Nebraska's Abortion Pain Prevention Act, signed into law last week, appears to have a quite reasonable aim: to prevent fetuses from feeling pain during abortions. In fact, the law, which bans abortions for women more than 20 weeks pregnant, is yet another attempt to undo Roe vs. Wade and abolish a woman's constitutional right to a pre-viability abortion. To do this, the law takes a disingenuous path, one well trodden by antiabortion legislation passed in the decades since Roe. Abortion legislation today commonly masquerades as something much smaller than a call to ban all abortions.

It is one of the enduring questions of religion and science, and lately of American politics: When does a fertilized egg become a person? Abortion foes, tired of a profusion of laws that limit but do not abolish abortion, are trying to answer the question in a way that they hope could put an end to legalized abortion. Across the country, they have revived efforts to amend state constitutions to declare that personhood -- and all rights accorded human beings -- begins at conception.

The White House scrambled Thursday to assuage worries from liberal groups about Judge Sonia Sotomayor's scant record on abortion rights, delivering strong but vague assurances that the Supreme Court nominee agrees with President Obama's belief in constitutional protections for a woman's right to the procedure.

President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court has provoked concern from abortion rights advocates, who say they have seen no evidence that she supports upholding Roe vs. Wade. Unlike most finalists for the high court opening, Sotomayor has never ruled on the issue. And in her only abortion-related decision, she did not come down the way activists would have liked. In 2002, Sotomayor rejected a challenge to President George W.

Taking direct aim at Roe vs. Wade, lawmakers from several states are proposing broad restrictions on abortion, with the goal of forcing the U.S. Supreme Court -- once it has a second new justice -- to revisit the landmark ruling issued 33 years ago today. The bill under consideration in Indiana would ban all abortions, except when continuing the pregnancy would threaten the woman's life or put her physical health in danger of "substantial permanent impairment."

WASHINGTON -- The Roe vs. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide turns 30 this week, but its prospects for the future look none too secure. Only five of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices strongly support the abortion right, and two of them -- 82-year-old John Paul Stevens and 72-year-old Sandra Day O'Connor -- are likely to retire within a few years. President Bush ran on a platform that promises he will appoint judges who "respect the sanctity of innocent human life."

Justice David H. Souter is a conservative man in the old-fashioned sense of the term. A frugal New Englander, he sat in his court office with the lights turned off, writing long-hand on a yellow legal pad. Those who knew him said he hated to waste electricity. He wore the same gray suit year after year. He worked long hours, including weekends, and ate lunch at his desk: a cup of yogurt and a piece of fruit. He collected old books and revered precedents in the law.

When Barack Obama campaigned for president, he promised to enact legislation to prohibit the states from limiting the right to abortion. Now that he is in the White House and Democratic majorities are ensconced in Congress, opponents of abortion rights are bracing for that and other major changes to abortion laws. But there are indications that what those groups dread most and some liberal voters eagerly anticipate as the rewards of victory may not come to pass -- at least not yet.