Abortion Controversy

WASHINGTON -- The nation's toughest anti-abortion law collapsed yesterday as the Supreme Court sent a clear message that states should not try to make abortion a crime.The court refused to take any action to save the territory of Guam's nearly total ban on abortion, a criminal law that goes further to forbid abortions than any U.S. law on the books.Although three justices who believe there should be no constitutional right to abortion voted to consider Guam's appeal, it takes the votes of four justices to grant review of any case.

THE abortion debate has become a ritual, with both sides reduced to mouthing the same platitudes over and over again.On one side of police barricades, angry people wave pictures of fetuses. On the other side, an equally angry group waves pictures of coat hangers.The media round up the usual suspects, getting a sound bite from the National Abortion Rights Action League spokesman, then another from Operation Rescue.Though few people have noticed, some astonishing scientific findings have been made in the 20 years since Roe vs. Wade that should shed new light on the issue and reinforce the reasoning behind the Supreme Court's decision.

WASHINGTON -- On the eve of the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court voted yesterday to take on a new abortion dispute, this time to spell out the free-speech rights of those who try to shut down clinics.The outcome of the case is likely to have an impact on clinic blockades across the country and could affect enforcement of a tough new federal law that Congress is expected to enact this year to punish blockaders.It probably was only a coincidence, but at the moment the court was acting on a major new test case from Florida, protesters on both sides of the abortion controversy were milling around in demonstrations on the sidewalk outside the courthouse.

BOSTON - Let me begin with a line from that famous social commentator, Homer Simpson: "Facts are meaningless; you can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true! Facts, schmacks." Homer first uttered that creed in 1997, but his quirky skepticism about the schmacks of facts is now the norm. The country is polarized over so many issues that we not only assume there are red and blue states, and red and blue politics, we also assume there are red and blue facts. I bring this up because of a recent column I wrote on the March for Women's Lives.

Today marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Humanae Vitae (OfHuman Life), the encyclical issued by Pope Paul VI reiterating the Roman Catholic Church's ban on artificial means of birth control. There won't be many sermons commemorating the occasion, and even an ardent admirer of the document notes that in 25 years she has never heard the words "Humanae Vitae" uttered from a pulpit in a Catholic church.Not unlike Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that was supposed to end the abortion controversy in the United States, Humanae Vitae fell far short of providing the last word for Catholics on the subject of birth control.

Anti-war sentiment is patriotic, tooI am tired of hearing pro-war people say that anti-war demonstrators are not supporting their troops or their country. I ask them: What could be more supportive than wanting the troops to come home alive and well? What is so unpatriotic in loving one's country enough to want to make it better, to help it reach its full potential by speaking out for change?Protest is an American tradition begun by the patriots of the Revolution, and it has carried on throughout our history.

Why in the world would Maryland's lieutenant governor be dining with a former deputy attorney general?Why would a Baltimore senator be pursued by a university professor?Why would a Maryland congresswoman be in hot pursuit of a former prosecutor?And why would a nursing-home owner be huddling with another law-enforcer?Answer: It's ticket-making time. Those in the race for governor have to come up with a running mate. In Maryland, the governor and lieutenant governor must run as a team.Picking a mate isn't easy.

It could have been my little brother. It could have been me.That's what the 16-year-old girl thinks when she hears about the 1.6 million abortions performed annually, or the more than 22 million since abortion was legalized.Her mother was single both times when she got pregnant, and both times she considered abortions, said the Catonsville girl, who asked that her name not be used."I wouldn't have my brother if my mother had had an abortion. All her friends, and her family, were saying, 'Get an abortion,' " she said.

Goat Slaughter: Nothing JuvenileI am writing you in reference to the goal slaughter at North Harford High School. I feel that the actions of these young men are a disgrace to Harford County residents and that not enough is being done about it. . . . Any citizen who believes that these dTC seniors had no intention of killing the goat are just as crazy as the kids. Why else were they carrying an ax? If these students had no intention of killing the goat, or if they felt at all bad about what happened, they would not have gone to school the next day bragging about what they had done.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court reopened the abortion controversy today, with several justices showing concern about far-reaching state controls on women if Roe vs. Wade is overruled or even cut back sharply.Justice David H. Souter, who has never taken a public position on abortion rights, and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whose current stance is somewhat in doubt, tried to get government lawyers to describe the full implications of a decision that would say abortion is no longer a fundamental constitutional right, as Roe said it was.The questioning led Pennsylvania's lawyer, state Attorney General Ernest D. Preate Jr., to concede that states would have the power even to require women to tell their sex partners that they planned to use a kind of birth control method that could bring about an abortion if the woman became pregnant.