A Futile Amendment

IT IS A violent act an emotional decision, a heated topic of debate, and a moral dilemma that may never be reconciled But once, woman has made up her mind to terminate her pregnancy, she will do it and no law will stop her. People will never compromise on the morality of abortion. But one thing is certain women have had abortions for centuries and will continue to have them.

Seeking to outlaw the operation seems as futile a gesture as the 18th amendment's attempt to prohibit the sale and manufacture of liquor Prohibition made "America safe for hypocrisy," but little else, since the laws were neither obeyed nor enforced. Prohibition violations were "naughty," but were victimless. Illegal abortions, however, can prove tragic.

BUT THAT DISTINCTION may not have occurred to the 10 Senators who voted for the Senate's latest anti-abortion initiative. Just over two weeks ago, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved 10 to 7 a proposed constitutional amendment--sponsored by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah)-that would allow states to draft their own anti-abortion laws. The vote, marking the first time a full Congressional committee has supported anti-abortion codes, makes Senate debate on abortion more likely than ever.

Regulations restricting abortions were first passed in the 19th century, not because of legislatures' moral objections, but because the operation was so dangerous. By 1962, abortion in a hospital was generally considered safe, but states' Model Penal Codes permitted the operation only if the health of the mother or child was threatened, or in a case of rape or incest. Abortions were rewarded to women who were either ill or rich. Hospitals awarded abortions to those women with diseases that could harm development of the fetus, almost as if in compensation for their illness. Alternatively, women with time and money could fly to Puerto Rico, Cuba, Mexico or other vacation spots that performed relatively safe operations.

In 1972, state supreme courts began to hold existing restrictions unconstitutional. And in 1973, the Supreme Court found that a woman has the right to terminate a pregnancy and that existing codes violated her constitutional right to privacy. The result: legalized abortions.

Up until 1973, between 200,000 and one million women were having illegal abortions annually, with a mortality rate of over 1060 a year. But the abortion rate barely changed after 1973; approximately 1.2 million abortions will be performed in the U.S. this year. Those figures indicate that the same number of women will have abortions whether they are legal or not. Just as the abortion rate did not increase when they were legalized, it will not wane if they are outlawed But the number of abortion related injuries and deaths will soar. The year after the Supreme Court's decision, such fatalities dropped by 40 percent.

If states draft anti-abortion laws, women will leave their home states and go to neighboring ones with legal abortions; illegal clinics will set high prices for their Black Market skills. These "Coathanger Closets" or "Vacuum Alleys" would endanger lives; pregnant patients would never be certain whether their abortion was performed by a doctor, nurse, midwife, or butcher. Other choices creep up on the desperate mother-to-be the home-made, self-executed method, used for centuries before modern science and legal abortions, could grow popular again; many women would understandably rather risk injury or death than have their secret exposed. In cases of extreme poverty or fear of disclosure, the last alternative would be to have the child-without the means or desire to care for it. But the statistics proving the rise in unwanted children, homeless youths, and infant murders will not haunt the 10 Judiciary Committee Senators responsible for the carnage.

ABORTION IS NOT a phenomenon of the uneducated or the lower classes University Health Services reports that 2.5 to 3.0 percent of all women patients seek abortions. Sixty to 80 percent of these are undergraduates. Three percent of American women have abortions each year and a study by Time-Life in the mid-70's predicts that one out of every four American women will have an abortion during her lifetime.

Why educated women with access to contraception have such a high rate of abortion remains unanswered. Those who dismiss the need for birth control or who use contraception carelessly are largely responsible: so are the imperfections of all methods except sterilization. All women are vulnerable to unwanted pregnancy, and many will seek abortions regardless of the law.

The vote last week was not the first time that anti-abortion legislation has been proposed in Congress, but, whether or not it succeeds this time, the right-to-life movement is gaining momentum. In testimony to a House subcommittee in February 1981, Dr. Mary Jane Gray, representing the National Women's Health Network, recalled that during her residency in New York City in the 1950's "hardly a night passed without my being summoned to the emergency room to treat a hemorrhaging woman with an incomplete or infected abortion, the result of illegal abortions clumsily performed under miserable circumstances. The women had to be hospitalized, anesthetized, operated upon, and placed on antibiotics. Some died, others had continuing medical problems for many years."

The violence, the desperation, and the controversy will not fade with the implementation of a prohibition on abortions. Again, as in the 1920's, the rules will be broken, but this time the stakes are much higher with no foreseeable rewards.