030474 nwr FUROR OVER ABORTION ~HOTTER THAN EVER

What are the rights of an unborn child? The question is stirring debate-and a nationwide drive by antiabortion forces to overturn a historic court ruling.

Little more than a year after the U. S. Supreme Court paved the way for a vast increase in legal abortions, pressures are building up nationwide to overturn or modify the sweeping decision.

An estimated 700,000 legal abortions are being performed annually in the U. S. in the wake of the ruling by the High Court.

Pending in Congress are several proposed constitutional amendments which would either limit abortions stringently or return their regulation completely to the States.

At the end of last year, 23 States had passed 39 abortion laws, many of them tightening procedures under which the operation may be obtained.

Thousands of "pro life" adherents have demonstrated before the U. S. Capitol in Washington, in Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Phoenix and other cities.

Scores of organizations have sprung up throughout the country, many linked to the National Right to Life Committee. Their aim: an end to nearly unrestricted performance of abortions.

In recent weeks, Congress has been deluged with mail on both sides of the controversy. Result has been a spate of legislation and proposals to limit the impact of the Court ruling.

Behind this growing movement lies a .,widely held feeling that the Court was wrong in denying a fetus the status of a human being and protection of the law. What the Court said in this respect is reported in the summary on page 44.

The moral issue. An expert on abortion law, John T. Noonan, Jr., of the University of California at Berkeley, said this:

"The Supreme Court has stripped all protection from a person from the time of conception until the time of birth."

Echoing that feeling, Dr. John Middleton, chairman of the New York State Right to Life Committee, described the situation this way:

I think that what we have to do is turn the morality around. We have much in the educational, social and political fields which is against the continuity of the society as it is.

"It is my strong feeling that the continuity of our society is hinged on this very issue-the sanctity of life."

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops, in its response to the Supreme Court decision, said that "Catholics must oppose abortion as an immoral act" and that "under Church law, those who undergo or perform an abortion place themselves in a state of excommunication."

Marjorie Mecklenburg, of Minneapolis, chairman of the National Right to Life Committee, not officially affiliated with the Catholic Church-which oversees 11 pro life" action in every State, said it is getting support from many groups.

Some groups are pushing an antiabortion amendment to the Constitution, others are educating women to the risks of abortion and the physical status of the fetus at various stages of development, still others are providing medical and social help for women who want to go through with pregnancy.

On the other side of this moral issue, Dr. Lawrence Baker, director of a private
Atlanta abortion clinic, said: anti-abortionists tend to make a fetus a baby. We don't consider a fetus a Person. It hasn't been socialized, its emotional life hasn't evolved. Our society hasn't been brought up to think of a fetus as a person."

Grass-roots action. Dr. Joseph Witherspoon, a law professor and president of Texas Right to Life, said:

"We now have a grass-roots spectrum of people concerned about abortion-Republican and Democrat, Protestant and Jewish, young and old. People are fearful for the retarded aged or any human being, as well. We have the same problem that faced Germany during the Nazi regime."

Dr. Witherspoon is legal adviser to the National Right to Life executive committee, and was instrumental in drafting proposed constitutional amendments on abortion.

A noted demographer, Prof. Judith Blake Davis of the University of California in Berkeley, believes the Court ruling did not change a widespread public opinion against abortions. She said:

"The country remains conservative. There has been no change at all in public opinion. . . . If there were a referendum today asking people to approve
abortion if a woman just doesn't want a child, there's no way it could pass. People don't think women should have abortions just to get rid of a child."

Not everyone agreed this was the case. A Gallup Poll taken in June, 1972, found that 64 per cent of those sampled believed the decision to have an abortion " should be made solely by a woman and her physician."

Representative Lionel Van Deerlin (Dem.), of California, reported that a poll among his constituents showed 82.1 per cent wanted abortion to be a matter between a woman and her doctor, and only 5.2 per cent wanted Government regulations on the operation.

States' "'conscience clause." Nineteen States have passed laws containing a "conscience clause" which provides that no institution or individual may be compelled to perform an abortion.

Other laws deal with conditions of legal abortion; protection of individuals and/or institutions in the choice of participating in abortion; consent requirements; report and record keeping; advertising, referral and counseling regulations; and insurance and medical-assistance coverage.

Altogether, States which passed new and generally restrictive statutes include Arizona, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Dakota.

- In addition, 15 State legislatures have delivered petitions to Congress urging passage of antiabortion laws.

The money angle. Despite such measures, millions of dollars now are being spent annually on legal abortions. Referrals to doctors and clinics who do abortions are believed, in some areas, to be costing patients additional millions.

In California, the Pro Life Council, a co-ordinating group for many organizations, is seeking legislation that would stop such "kickbacks," would require agencies and social workers to advise pregnant women of alternatives to abortion as well as complications of the operation, and would protect babies who survive abortions so that they will get reasonable care.

Observed Richard Turner, lobbyist for the Council:

"Abortion is such a big business in California that we can only hope to prohibit the abuses, as we get the legislature to see them."

Where figures have become available, they indicate that legal abortions are cutting into the birth rate. Births in California, for example, fell from a peak of 374,000 in 1964 to around 300,000 in 1973. In New York City, live births declined from 149,000 in 1970 to 115,500 in 1972.

With growing use of the pill, many physicians have suffered a declining practice in obstetrics, made up in part by their participation in abortions.

Fees vary, but San Francisco obstetricians are charging from $75 to $250 for an early abortion, and from $350 to $500 for an operation in the second three months of pregnancy.

Fewer adoptions. Those against abortion point to long waiting lists of hopeful adoptive parents as an incentive for pregnant women to have babies-even if they give them up.

South Carolina's children's bureau reports the average waiting for white couples is 26 months, for blacks 6 or 7. And, an official adds, more single girls are keeping babies.

Emmett K. Turner, who is director of adoption services for the Michigan department of social services, made this comment:

"Anything that causes a decrease in the availability of healthy newborns causes an increase in the gray-market trade of children-so, in this sense, the increase in abortion may increase the amount of money exchanged for children on the gray market....

"The number of would-be parents turned away for lack of adoptable babies is legion, and I'm sure that relationship here to the increasing number of abortions performed."

In California, where a Therapeutic Abortion Law became effective in 1967, adoptions through agencies dropped in a four-year period from 8,667 to 3,199. Independent adoptions declined from 3,390 to 2,178.

Mary Sullivan, chief of adoptive services, noted:

"Babies are still popular. We have many more families applying for infants and toddlers than there are young children for placement.

"Many agencies have stopped taking names and information."

Will Congress act? On Capitol Hill there is widespread feeling that the country is divided on the abortion issue and that the time has not yet come for a constitutional amendment.

A congressional aide commented:"One thing you learn around here is that we don't get anything through unless there is quite a broad consensus, and we don't have it on this one."

Another said:

"This is a hot potato. Most of the country has a vague feeling that freedom of choice is best. But there is a strong minority against the Supreme Court ruling. It's a good issue to stay away from in an election year-or any year."

Most of the "pro life" groups, too, are not expecting quick action. But they are hopeful in the long run. William H. Waldorf, of the Wake County, N.C., Right to Life Committee, said:

"I don't think the human-life amendment will be passed this year. It'll probably be two or three years before we get one. Then it has to be ratified by the States. It's going to be a long battle, but we're certain of our outcome."

Indicative of the more extreme type of pressure being brought to bear was a statement by Supreme Court justice Harry A. Blackmun on February 5.

"The thing that interests me about the decision is the personal abuse heaped upon me," justice Blackmun said. "I've never seen such an outpouring of hate mail, a lot of it form mail."

Needed: social changes. Beyond the proposed amendments to the constitution and modifications in laws, many 11 pro life" leaders are looking to long range social changes to accomplish their ends.

The Rev. Mr. Warren Schaller. acting director of the National Right to Life Committee, explained:

"I think this is a strong, nationwide movement that is getting the proabortionists very worried.

"Instead of accepting the Supreme Court as the final word, individuals must make personal decisions about whether or not the human fetus is a living being; and, if so, whether or not the mother has a right to kill this being....

"And, finally, we must stop ostracizing the unwed mother. She must be permitted to continue her schooling, her work and her life in an accepting society, so that she will not have to abort her child if she doesn't want to." [END]

WHAT THE
SUPREME COURT
RULED ON
ABORTION LAWS

When the U. S. Supreme Court struck down abortion laws in Texas and Georgia on Jan. 22. 1973, it limited any State's right to prohibit abortion.

In effect, the Court's 7-to-2 ruling said that a State can prohibit an abortion only in the last three months of pregnancy and then not if the abortion is necessary to protect the health of the mother.

Basis for this decision- the right to privacy as protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Specifically, the Court said;

- During the first three months of pregnancy, the decision to abort rests solely with the woman and her doctor.

- During the second three months, the State can regulate the abortion procedure to protect maternal health.

- During the third three months, when the fetus is viable, the State can regulate or even prohibit abortion except when it's necessary for the mother's mental or physical health.

Thus the Court said a State had the right to pass an antiabortion law to protect its "interest in the potentiality of human life"-but only in the last three months of pregnancy.

-The Court stated that the due process clause "does not include the unborn"