A Question of Rights

The Supreme Court should clarify stance on "partial-birth" abortion

The recent attack on abortion has taken a variety of forms, all of which jeopardize women's Constitutional rights. On Sept. 19, the House of Representatives voted to override President Clinton's veto of the bill banning a late-term abortion procedure commonly known as "partial-birth" abortions. While the Senate couldn't muster the required two-thirds majority to override the veto last week, the debate has brought the issue of abortion to the center of the political arena.

The extremely rare procedure is used to terminate a pregnancy in its last stages, usually if the mother's health is endangered. The President vetoed the ban on the procedure precisely because it did not include a clause for health-endangering situations. He was right to do so. It is a dangerous and delicate thing when the government starts making laws about what procedures doctors can and cannot perform in order to protect a patient's life or health, and this ban clearly was such legislation at its worst. By failing to protect the mother's health the ban effectively placed the fetus in a position of higher importance than the mother, a clear violation of women's Constitutional rights under Roe v. Wade.

Over 30 states have passed some sort of ban on partial-birth abortions, but 20 of them have been blocked or restricted in enforcing the ban by the courts. Just a day after the Senate failed to override the President's veto of the partial-birth abortion bill, a federal appeals court upheld Illinois and Wisconsin bans of the procedure, virtually ensuring that the issue will go to the Supreme Court.

It is high time that the Supreme Court steps in to clarify and protect the right which it affirmed for women under Roe v. Wade and which has been slowly undermined ever since. States have severely limited a woman's access to abortion through waiting periods and parental consent laws, while the federal government has denied access to abortions to poor women through the Hyde Amendment which mandates that no federal funds can be used to pay for an abortion.

The current Supreme Court is not likely to hand down a judgement allowing the partial-birth abortion procedure to be used indiscriminately. Even the Roe v. Wade ruling allowed individual states to make laws discouraging abortions in the third trimester. However, the Court should, and hopefully will, reaffirm the protection for cases in which a woman's health is endangered.

The recent Food Drug Administration approval of drugs like Preven, a morning after pill which prevents pregnancy within three days of having unprotected sex, will no doubt lead to a decline in abortions at clinics. Indeed, with the long-awaited arrival of RU-486, women will soon be able to end a pregnancy in the privacy of their own home.

However, if the battle is not fought in courtrooms and at clinic doors, it will be fought in other ways. Walgreens still refuses to sell emergency contraceptives like Preven, no doubt because of pressure from anti-abortionists.

So, it is important now more than ever--as abortion is still under attack from many fronts even as new choices for women arise--that the Supreme Court address the right which it first affirmed over 25 years ago. America's women deserve no less than the full protection of their rights under law.