New Abortion Battle Heats Up

Women's and civil liberties groups at Harvard have begun mobilizing delegations for a massive pro-choice march planned for Washington, D.C. this November, organizers said.

Leaders of the Radcliffe Union of Students and the Civil Liberties Union at Harvard (CLUH) have arranged to bring 11 busloads of students to the march, scheduled to take place as the Supreme Court prepares to hear three key abortion rights cases in the next two months, said Ellen Zucker, vice president of the Boston chapter of the National Organization of Women (NOW).

Ellen Convisser, president of Boston NOW, said she was pleased with the efforts that the students at Harvard and other campuses are making because of their importance to the pro-choice movement.

"College students are not only the present but the future," Convisser said. "You hear in too many conversations that college students are not concerned with the issues, but that's just not true."

The Washington march organized by NOW is expected to be the largest women's rights demonstration ever in the United States. It comes in the wake of last July's landmark Supreme Court decision in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, which weakened the federal protection of abortion set forth in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Simultaneous pro-choice protests are planned for the West Coast, the South and the Southwest besides Washington.

Last April, Harvard sent 900 demonstrators to a NOW-sponsored march where between 300,000 and 600,000 activists rallied for women's rights on the Mall. A similar turnout is hoped for November, Zucker said.

$40 Bus Tickets

Beginning this week, Harvard RUS and CLUH leaders said they plan to solicit supporters at the 12 upperclass houses and the Union. Round-trip bus tickets will sell for $40, and buttons and t-shirts will also be sold to publicize the march. All proceeds will go to subsidizing transportation costs for demonstrators, said Julia L. Shaffner '91, president of CLUH.

Shaffner said that a preliminary meeting held earlier this week and a sign-up sheet placed at registration two weeks ago generated positive responses from students.

"People need to be called, you need to get on people's cases a little bit, but people seem to be very sympathetic to the pro-choice movement," James M. Kittelberg '90, another organizer for the group, said. "Once you call people andget them moving the results can be astounding."

The national mobilization effort comes as theSupreme Court readies to hear three key abortionrights cases this fall. One, Turnoch v.Ragsdale, deals with clinic licensing. Theothers, Akron Center for Reproductive Health v.Ohio and Hodgson v. Minnesota, addresswhether parents must be notified before minors areallowed to have abortions.

NOW leaders contacted this week said theprotests are part of a strategy to avoid enteringa state-by-state battle with anti-abortionactivists, where the choice movement could befragmented.

"The reason why this [a national strategy] isso critical is because we have to keep thepressure on the Congress and Supreme Court," saidBoston President Ellen Convisser. "We cannot winthis battle on a state-by-state level."

"The anti-choice people want us to fight stateby state because they'll win some and we'll winsome," Shaffner said, "We can't let our energiesbe divided."

But Convisser or Shaffner did not dismiss theimportance of working on the state and locallevels. Kittelberg said the Harvard CLUH and RUScoalition plans to work on the state legislatureafter the march is over.CrimsonZach M. SchragPro-choice demonstrators ANDREW SABL '90 andJULIA L. SHAFFNER '91 return from a rally inBoston.