Abortion Debate

Nothing livens up a legislative session more than a debate on abortion.To his credit, Gov. Parris N. Glendening has guaranteed a furious round of lobbying and floor debate in the General Assembly by crafting a budget that does away with restrictions on Medicaid-funded abortions. Those restrictions, which have been in effect since 1980, allow Medicaid to pay for abortions only in cases where the mother's life or health is seriously threatened, or in cases where pregnancy results from rape or incest or when the fetus is deformed.

WASHINGTON -- Tens of thousands of abortion opponents gathered in Washington yesterday, as they have each of the last 22 years on the anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion, to press the government for changes in the law.On this occasion, a principal focus of the march was to support legislation that would outlaw a rarely used late-term form of abortion. Both the Senate and the House have passed versions of such a bill, but President Clinton has said he will veto it.Both sides in the abortion debate see the legislation as important, as it is the first time since the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973 that Congress has voted to ban any method of abortion.

In a matter of minutes on Friday, President Clinton reversed some of the most significant anti-abortion victories of the past two decades. Too bad he couldn't end, with the stroke of a pen, one of the longest and most acrimonious public debates in the nation's history. But the presence of some 75,000 demonstrators -- many of whom have gathered in Washington each Jan. 22 since 1973 to protest legalized abortion -- proved that the country has not heard the end of the issue.To mark the 20th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, the president signed an executive order reversing the infamous "gag rule" prohibiting any mention of abortion in federally financed family planning clinics.

The most intense battleground in the abortion debate these days revolves around a simple question: What do women need to know before they terminate a pregnancy? South Dakota lawmakers want to compel doctors - under penalty of a month in jail - to tell women that the abortion they seek will kill a "whole, separate, unique, living human being." South Carolina is on the verge of requiring women to review ultrasound images of their fetus with a physician before consenting to end the pregnancy.

WASHINGTON - In President Bush's first week in office, he plunged into the politically turbulent abortion debate from several angles, questioning and, in one case, reversing Clinton-era initiatives that had been the law for the past eight years. But Bush's statements and actions have not only raised the ire of the abortion rights community, which expected his opposition to its cause. They have also sent alarm bells ringing through scientific research and patients groups that fear Bush may curtail federally funded research that uses fetal tissue or stem cells from embryos and aborted fetuses.

TCThough they won four big victories in Tuesday's primaries, abortion-rights activists say they'll have to survive November's general election before they can declare the Senate filibuster-proof on the abortion issue.Abortion-rights groups need 32 votes -- two-thirds of the Senate -- to cut off extended debate like the eight-day filibuster that led to the death of an abortion-rights bill last March. In that parliamentary battle, sponsors of the abortion bill fell one vote shy of breaking the filibuster and forcing a vote on their bill.

WASHINGTON -- Maybe the Clinton White House stumbled unintentionally into an abortion debate with the Republicans on the nomination of Dr. Henry W. Foster Jr. to be surgeon general. But maybe it's not the worst thing that could happen to a president in political trouble.Some Democrats like Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Barbara A. Mikulski are declaring the White House the gang that can't shoot straight for nominating an obstetrician-gynecologist who makes an easy target for abortion foes.

THE PRO-life movement must measure its victories in nuances. Roe vs. Wade will not be overturned any time soon. But there is movement in the culture.The flap over the appointment of Dr. Henry Foster Jr. is an example of the progress made. When it was revealed that Dr. Foster had performed abortions, some commentators shrugged, saying, "What else can you expect? This is an administration wedded to the idea that abortion is a solemn right. Why should we be surprised that an appointee shares that view?"

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's decision to ask Congress to ditch the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding of abortions, is the latest blow to abortion foes who have seen their political clout steadily eroded by a combination of election results and public sentiment.In 1989, when the Supreme Court in Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services ruled by 5-4 that states could impose limitations on abortion rights affirmed in 1973 in Roe vs. Wade, the anti-abortion forces thought the tide had turned for them.

CHICAGO - When T. S. Eliot wrote that "humankind cannot bear very much reality," he could have been talking about the abortion debate. As abortion rights advocates try to make their case against the nomination of John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court, they have abandoned fact-checking in favor of mythmaking. The myths in this case are two. The first is that Judge Roberts is a frothing extremist on the subject of Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision creating a constitutional right to abortion.