Abortion

WASHINGTON -- The Republican Party's nine declared presidential candidates eyed each other warily as much as they sparred during a muted televised debate yesterday in Iowa that featured some careful distancing from President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and jabs at Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and other Democratic hopefuls. The 90-minute session at Drake University in Des Moines, hosted by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, began with a withering exchange between former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, then settled into a tame discussion that rarely drifted from party orthodoxy.

WASHINGTON -- Henry J. Hyde, the veteran Republican from the suburbs of Chicago who was a key figure in the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton and wrote a controversial law ending federal financing for abortions, died yesterday at a hospital in Chicago. He was 83. Mr. Hyde, who retired from Congress at the end of the 2006 session, died at Rush University Medical Center. A hospital spokeswoman told the Associated Press he was admitted for persistent renal failure after open-heart surgery in July and suffered a fatal arrhythmia.

MEXICO CITY -- City legislators voted yesterday to legalize abortion in this capital during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, an action that supporters say will serve as a landmark for women's rights in Latin America. The move could result in thousands of Mexican women traveling to the nation's capital for safe and legal abortions. Catholic activists and the leaders of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, have promised to challenge the law in court. "Women have self-determination over their bodies," Deputy Daniel Ordoqez said as he formally introduced the bill to the city's Legislative Assembly.

An abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman's risk of breast cancer, according to results released yesterday from a decade-long study of more than 100,000 women. The study is the most recent in a series that have undercut a concern used by activists to dissuade women from having an abortion. "It's important for women to have the facts," said Dr. Karin B. Michaels of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, lead author of the study. An expert panel convened by the National Cancer Institute concluded in 2003 that there was no evidence to support a link between abortion and breast cancer, she said, "and our study is very much in line with that."

Many doctors feel they have no ethical obligation to inform patients about controversial medical practices or to make referrals to doctors who think differently, according to a survey of physicians by University of Chicago researchers. The survey found that about 1 in 7 American doctors believe they can withhold information on moral grounds about treatments such as abortion, terminal sedation for the dying and prescribing birth control to adolescents. Nearly a third believe it is ethical to refuse to refer a patient seeking such treatments.

WASHINGTON -- Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican presidential contender who favors abortion rights, said in a televised debate last night that it would be "OK" if the Supreme Court overturned the landmark ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion. Giuliani, the early front-runner in the polls, said he believes that abortion is a matter that should be left to a woman's conscience, but he also said that states could make their own decisions about whether to outlaw the procedure.

WASHINGTON -- Retired Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun -- a quiet, modest and religious man who came to be adored and damned for a single act of judging, the abortion decision of 1973 -- died yesterday. He was 90.Five years after he retired at the end of nearly a quarter-century on the court, Mr. Blackmun died at 1 a.m. at a hospital in Arlington, Va., of complications after hip-replacement surgery. He had broken his hip late last month in a fall at his apartment in Arlington.Mr. Blackmun joined the court as a reliable conservative ally of Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and left it as a predictable liberal.

In WashingtonClinton offers new protections for elderlyThe greatest threat older Americans face is not a gun-wielding thug but "a telemarketer armed with a deceptive rap," President Clinton said yesterday. He proposed legislation to shut down telephone scams aimed at the elderly.The president said the sharply falling crime rate is a godsend to older people who once fearfully locked themselves into their homes, but new protection is needed for nursing home residents who "cannot lock the door against abuse and neglect by the people paid to care for them."

WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens blocked two states yesterday from enforcing laws that make it a crime to perform a specific type of late-term abortion.His action marked the first time that the court or any of its members had barred a state from enforcing laws -- growing rapidly in number across the nation -- that ban a procedure known by those who oppose it as "partial-birth" abortion.In separate orders in two cases, Stevens temporarily blocked Illinois and Wisconsin laws until the Supreme Court rules on forthcoming appeals that have challenged the laws.

It's back in the stirrups again for Miss America.Just before the 1999 competition, in what one TV reporter termed "a stunning break with tradition," women hoping to become this millennium's last American icon of bathing beauty had been officially granted the right to have had an abortion and still be eligible for the crown. But on Sept. 27, her freedom to choose was revoked. Miss America's reign over her own body had lasted less than a month.What but a uterine examination -- possibly performed under duress if a competitor's eligibility was seriously questioned -- could distinguish the had-abortions from the had-nots?

Do you agree with legislation before the Baltimore City Council that would require pregnancy counseling centers that do not provide abortion services to post signs indicating that policy? Yes 57% No 42% Not sure 1% (2,691 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : The U.S. Supreme Court is about to take up the question of sentencing juveniles to life in prison without parole for certain violent crimes. Do such sentences violate the Constitution's ban on cruel and usual punishment?

Should Mayor Sheila Dixon sign a City Council-approved bill expanding the areas of Baltimore where restaurants and bars can offer live music and other types of performances? Yes 74% No 23% Not sure 3% (882 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : Do you agree with legislation before the Baltimore City Council that would require pregnancy counseling clinics that do not provide abortion services to post signs indicating that policy? Vote at baltimoresun.com/vote

Advocates on both sides of the abortion debate filled Baltimore City Council chambers for a contentious hearing on legislation that would require pregnancy counseling clinics that do not provide abortion services to post signs indicating that policy. The legislation would affect four centers, two of which are funded by the Roman Catholic Church. The centers provide adoption information and counseling, but do not perform abortions or issue contraceptives. City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake introduced the bill at the behest of Planned Parenthood, a pro-choice organization that hopes the Baltimore legislation will serve as a model for a national effort.

For those whose lives revolve primarily around real people in real time and real space, hurry, go hide. Here's what you missed in the social networking universe the past few days: the twittered miscarriage. Yes, the tweet that gave even the virtual world pause came from one Penelope Trunk, 42-year-old CEO of a blog called "Brazen Careerist," where women can find advice about balancing work and family. Ms. Trunk tweeted while in a board meeting that she was having a miscarriage - and how great is that?

Plan wouldn't fund abortion After a month of right-wing activists employing every scare tactic imaginable at congressional town hall meetings on health reform, columnist Kathleen Parker falsely claimed that health care reform would lead to federally funded abortions ("Abortion issue could thwart Obama's health reform goals," Sept. 9). The truth is that advocates for women's health care, including Planned Parenthood, are focused on achieving affordable, quality health care for all and ensuring that women's broad health needs are met through reform.

As President Barack Obama prepares to address Congress on health care reform, America's pro-life movement is gassing up. If Mr. Obama hasn't liked the tenor of town-hall meetings, wait until he meets pro-lifers at full throttle. They're planning a major drive to try to stop federal funding of abortion as allowed under proposed health care legislation. Mr. Obama has partly invited this havoc by not being completely forthright about how health care reform, as currently proposed, would provide taxpayer funding for abortion.

Prior to recent events, I intended to write about the GOP's message problem with the headline: "Shoot the Messenger." Sunday's murder of abortion doctor George Tiller makes my title inappropriate, but the idea remains relevant. The adage, of course, is "Don't shoot the messenger," meaning we shouldn't blame the person who delivers bad news. For the GOP these days, however, the problem isn't so much the message. It's the messenger. By grotesque coincidence, Dr. Tiller's murderer furthers the point.

My late father and I share part of the blame for the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the abortion doctor gunned down on Sunday. Until I got out of the religious right (in the mid-1980s) and repented of my former hate-filled rhetoric, I was both a leader of the so-called pro-life movement and a part of a Republican Party hate machine masquerading as the moral conscience of America. In the late 1970s, my father, evangelical pro-life leader Francis Schaeffer, along with Dr. C. Everett Koop (who soon become surgeon general in the Reagan administration)

In the weeks after he was invited to give the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame on Sunday, President Barack Obama seemed like Daniel about to walk into the lions' den. Some religious conservatives and anti-abortion activists expressed dismay that a leading Catholic institution would invite a pro-choice president to address its graduating class; others were even more upset that the school was granting him an honorary degree. Yet instead of being torn limb from limb, Mr. Obama met the challenge head-on with his faith in the ability of reasonable people to disagree and still find common ground on the issues that matter to them.

BOSTON - As if the Republicans weren't having enough trouble with defectors, they've gone on a purge. There was Dick Cheney on Face the Nation. Asked to pick between a GOP like Rush Limbaugh or Colin Powell, the former Veep not only chose Rush but snarkily crossed the general off the party list, saying, "I didn't know he was still a Republican." This was less than two weeks after Arlen Specter assessed the odds of winning a Republican primary in Pennsylvania at exactly zip. The not-so-fond farewells that pursued Mr. Specter were nothing compared to the GOP un-eulogies for David Souter.