Abortion Controversy

WASHINGTON -- The 20th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion did not pass quietly here. As expected, the city was overrun with opponents of abortion rights to remind everyone how complex and contentious this issue has been -- and probably will continue to be for another generation of Americans.The only thing different about this year's march is that the "right-to-life" demonstrators, as they characterize themselves, didn't have a friend and ally in the White House for the first time in 12 years.

Maryland officials are discovering what President Clinton and Congress are about to learn: that it is a tortuous task to develop a comprehensive health care plan that is both affordable and free of political controversy.The state's health care reform effort, though modest in comparison with Mr. Clinton's, became law earlier this year and is nearing completion of its first phase: the development of a minimum package of health benefits that insurers must offer small companies beginning next summer.

James Guest, president of Planned Parenthood of Maryland, laments the amount of money that will be spent on a drive to defeat the state's new abortion law, once abortion opponents succeed in gathering enough signatures to place the law on the ballot in November 1992. In a time of scarce resources it is regrettable that each side of this debate will probably spend more than a million dollars to carry its case to the electorate.Yet a referendum can be worth the money, and especially so in this case.

Ex-Sen. Kelly announces he's switching to GOPFormer Baltimore County state Sen. Francis X. Kelly, who lost his re-election bid last year in a bitter fight over the abortion issue, today announced that he is switching from the Democratic to the Republican Party.Kelly said he has no current plans to seek elected office but is eager to work for party goals within the state."I'm not doing this for personal reasons," he told members of the House Republican Caucus meeting in Annapolis this morning.

President Clinton's orders reversing many of the Reagan-Bush decrees on abortion are what elections are all about. The voters chose a president committed to abortion rights, and one of his first acts in office was to sweep away anti-abortion regulations affecting everything from federally financed medical research to free speech for family planning clinics to the restoration of U.S. leadership in international family planning efforts. In a nice piece of symbolism, the orders were signed on the 20th anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling legalizing abortion.

After three murders, perhaps the nation is beginning to understand the dangers posed by the militant wing of the anti-abortion movement. The presence of U.S. marshals outside clinics threatened by violence and the FBI's decision to explore the need for a full-fledged investigation of criminal conspiracies to commit violence are reassuring steps for anyone who provides or seeks medical services at these clinics. Yet many of those same people are justified in asking why it took so long.The litany of violence is lengthy.

Somewhere, in this country or overseas, there is supposed to be a villain who can be blamed for creating the almost unsolvable legal puzzle over use of the next "miracle" drug: RU-486. But everyone who might be the culprit is pointing at someone else.RU-486 -- a drug invented in France a decade ago -- is now proclaimed by many doctors, researchers, scientists and victims some kinds of cancer as a "medical breakthrough," a truly revolutionary new medicine. Depending upon what future tests show, RU-486 might even be useful in dealing with the AIDS epidemic.

President Clinton may have bungled and stumbled into a winning issue -- the abortion controversy that divides the Republican Party -- in nominating Dr. Henry Foster as surgeon general. If the Republican Senate rejects the Tennessee educator-physician, Mr. Clinton could come out a winner politically -- if the public perceives this was an "abortion vote," not a vote against the White House.The Foster nomination is turning out to be the first real skirmish of the 1996 presidential election. Although the Clinton White House did its usual sloppy job in vetting Dr. Foster's background, it is awakening to the fact that the Republicans have more to lose than the Democrats in refocusing national attention on abortion.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court refused again yesterday RTC to be drawn back into the abortion fight and, in the process, appears to have made it harder for clinics and their patients to stop abortion restrictions from going into effect.Passing up a major test case involving a year-old Mississippi anti-abortion law, the court left intact a federal appeals court ruling that strongly suggests that such laws would have to be enforced first and then challenged.For years, opponents of new anti-abortion restrictions have gone to court and, in almost every case, have gotten orders to block those restrictions temporarily while their constitutional challenge went ahead.

BOSTON - Emergency contraception is the no-brainer in the abortion controversy. If taken soon enough, it can prevent 80 percent of unwanted pregnancies. Anyone looking to reduce the number of abortions should agree on reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies. There is still no peep from the Food and Drug Administration on putting Plan B, the after-the-act contraceptive, on the drugstore shelf. Still no Plan C, if C stands for the ever-elusive common ground. It's no secret that there's a solid anti-abortion majority in the Congress.