Abortion Rights Advocate Speaks at HLS

Fifteen years ago, the abortion rights lobby thought there was little work to do in protecting reproductive rights. But after a decade of Republican control of Congress, many of the protections have been eroded, an abortion rights advocate told a packed auditorium at Harvard Law School yesterday.

The ultimate question “is not whether you can get an abortion, but whether you can get the safest abortion for you,” said Priscilla Smith, the former director of the Domestic Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights.

In her speech, entitled “The Federal Abortion Ban: What Will It Do to Roe?”, Smith detailed numerous court cases that addressed abortion rights.

Smith said the last opportunity to overturn Roe was 15 years ago in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The decision weakened the standard of right-to-choose, but reaffirmed many of the findings in Roe.

The early 1990s saw two significant changes in the pro-life campaigns, according to Smith.

First, Smith said, members of those opposed to a right to abortion began to obstruct access to abortion clinics and killed a number of abortion-providers. Second, Smith said, protesters started the “ban partial-birth abortion” campaign.

But despite increased protests, the courts largely protected abortion rights toward the end of the last decade.

In 2003, however, Congress banned partial-birth abortions on the basis that they were not medically necessary.

In reality, Smith said, these procedures safeguard against “hemorrhage, cervical scarring, [and] death,” among others.

And now, another case, Gonzales v. Carhart, is before the court.

Smith described the case as a legal battle turned medical seminar. Though she said that “lawyers hate medicine because it is so mysterious and indefinable,” members of the court were interested in the technicalities of an abortion.

When asked about the future of abortion law, Smith said she was uncertain about the possibilities, as she alternated between pessimism and optimism.

The event was sponsored by the NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts and several Law School groups.