Abortion Clinics

RECENT STUDIES ON TEEN pregnancy and abortion invite us to connect the statistical dots. But when we do, we don't get much of a picture. The Guttmacher Institute, a research group that focuses on sexual health and family issues, reports that 33 states have made it more difficult for poor women and teenagers to get reproductive health care. At a time when the public debate on abortion is roaring to new life, it doesn't make much sense to limit a woman's access to information and services that will prevent an unintended pregnancy, but there you have it. In related news, The New York Times reported that its analysis of data shows that laws that require minors to notify their parents or get their permission to have an abortion have not reduced the number of teen abortions, as had been hoped.

WASHINGTON - An advertisement that a leading abortion-rights organization began running on national television yesterday, opposing Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. as one "whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans," quickly became the first flash point in the three-week-old confirmation process. Several prominent abortion-rights supporters and a neutral media watchdog group called the ad misleading and unfair, and a conservative group quickly took to the airwaves with an ad countering it. The 30-second spot - which NARAL Pro-Choice America is spending $500,000 to place on the Fox and CNN cable networks, and on broadcast stations in Maine and Rhode Island over the next two weeks - focuses on an argument Roberts made to the Supreme Court in an abortion-related case in the early 1990s, when he was principal deputy solicitor general working in the administration of the first President Bush.

WASHINGTON - John G. Roberts Jr.'s 1991 arguments in a case involving the right of protesters to block access to abortion clinics emerged yesterday as a central point of contention between opponents and supporters of his nomination to the Supreme Court. A leading abortion rights group, NARAL Pro-Choice America, released the first anti-Roberts attack ad, highlighting his role in Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Center, a case the Supreme Court heard that year. "America can't afford a justice whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans," the ad says.

A proposal to license and regulate clinics that perform abortions in Maryland appears all but dead in the legislature this year, according to a sponsor of the bill now before the state Senate. Sen. Andrew P. Harris, a Baltimore County Republican and anesthesiologist, said that while he believes he has the six votes needed to win passage of his bill in the Education, Health and Environment Committee, he does not believe the committee's chairwoman, Sen. Paula C. Hollinger, will consider it. "I don't think it will appear on any more vote lists," Harris said yesterday.

Maryland must start regulating abortion clinics As a former unwed mother who was subjected to pressure to get an abortion at a substandard free clinic, I think David Nitkin's article on state Sen. Janet Greenip's proposed Women's Health Protection Act was devoid of pertinent facts and strongly biased ("Abortion foes propose regulating Md. clinics," Jan. 7). Mr. Nitkin writes, "Abortion providers and the state's top health official said more stringent regulations are not needed because there is no evidence that facilities pose a health risk."

ASHEVILLE, N.C. - After a brief court appearance here yesterday, serial bombing suspect Eric Rudolph was flown to Birmingham, Ala., where prosecutors have decided to try him in a fatal abortion clinic attack in 1998 that they said represents the government's best chance for a speedy conviction. Rudolph, shackled at the ankles, wore an orange jumpsuit and blue flak jacket as he appeared in court for the first time since his capture after a five-year manhunt. The hearing took place before a crowded courtroom in U.S. District Court about 100 miles from where he was arrested Saturday in the wooded mountains of Western North Carolina.

MURPHY, N.C. - For five years, the mystery of Eric Rudolph's whereabouts provided a kind of parlor game for residents here along the forested flanks of the Appalachians. But the arrest over the weekend of the man accused of four bombing attacks placed a new question on the lips of just about everyone in this western North Carolina town, locals and visitors alike: How did he do it? As authorities began yesterday to retrace the steps that led to Rudolph's capture behind a supermarket on the edge of town, there was only speculation about how the former handyman managed for years to elude a manhunt by federal agents seeking him in connection with several blasts across the South.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court declared yesterday that federal extortion and racketeering laws could not be used against abortion protesters blocking clinic entrances, handing a victory to civil liberties groups that said a contrary decision would have stifled all types of political protest. Ruling 8-1 in a Chicago case, the court said abortion protesters had not committed extortion under federal law when they blocked clinic entrances. The court also rejected claims that the protesters, led by Operation Rescue's Joseph Scheidler, had violated federal anti-racketeering laws originally aimed at combating organized crime.

WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle became a target of an apparent anthrax attack, when an aide to the South Dakota Democrat opened an envelope yesterday containing powder that tested positive for the germ. Two more cases of anthrax came to light yesterday. In New York, officials at ABC News said last night that the infant son of an employee has been diagnosed with the skin form of anthrax. The child, who was not identified, was said to be responding well to treatment. In Florida, a 73-year-old employee of the tabloid newspaper company where one man died from the disease was also confirmed to have contracted anthrax.

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court yesterday barred a criminal case against two Roman Catholic figures who said they intentionally broke the law against abortion clinic blockades as a result of their religious beliefs -- a claim that had led a federal judge to absolve them.The case, closely watched from both sides of the abortion debate, appears headed to the Supreme Court in the wake of the 6-6 decision yesterday by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City.As a result of the ruling, a federal judge's decision in favor of a retired Catholic auxiliary bishop and a Franciscan friar was left standing, and the case against them was scuttled -- unless it is revived by the Supreme Court.