Abortion Rights

WASHINGTON -- Taking a page from the Democrats' bus tour book, a group of Republicans has left Washington on a two-week cavalcade to Houston to dramatize their support for abortion rights, an issue that threatens to fracture the GOP convention in three weeks.While the party has long been divided over abortion, the Reagan revolution squelched the abortion-rights faction in 1980 and only recently has it begun to be more vocal.Mary Dent Crisp, a former co-chair of the Republican National Committee, and Ann Stone, a conservative Republican, are spearheading the drive this year and they pledge not to be silenced in Houston.

Saying he believes "it's very important that Maryland remain a pro-choice state," Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke today pledged to campaign all summer in support of an abortion rights bill that will be on the ballot this November.Mr. Schmoke said he will encourage voter registration, make personal appearances, mobilize his campaign workers and talk "to friends in the clergy who are conflicted on this matter."Maryland's new abortion rights law would allow abortion without government interference until the point in a pregnancy when the fetus would be able to survive outside the womb.

Washington -- Why can't abortion rights groups see whe they're ahead?Talk about not knowing how to win!To listen to some of the major abortion rights groups as well as pro-abortion-rights women members of the House these days, you'd think the right to abortion is as imperiled as it was last year, when the Supreme Court seemed poised to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.In fact, the opposite is true, and not only thanks to President Clinton's nomination to the Supreme Court of abortion-rights backer Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

ANNAPOLIS -- Chanting "Pro-Choice Teen-Choice" and "one-four-six," abortion rights advocates gathered in front of the State House last night to show their support of Senate Bill 146, which seeks to preserve the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision.Annapolis police estimated the crowd at 1,200 people. But Bea Poulin, the executive director of Marylanders for the Right to Choose, which organized the rally, said that about 3,000 supporters made the march from the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium to a grassy area across from the State House.

WESTMINSTER -- Before voters started going to the polls in Carroll County today, their sons and daughters may have provided a peek at who could win.Ross Perot won the majority of votes in mock elections held in county high schools and middle schools. Mr. Perot won 37.9 percent; George Bush won 35.8 percent; and Bill Clinton trailed with 26.2 percent.Question 6, a referendum on preserving abortion rights under state law, won with 52.7 percent of the vote.School officials used to say that as the school election goes, so goes the county.

WASHINGTON -- Congress may soon have to decide whether to legislate abortion rights -- an issue that its members, wary of prodding a hornets' nest, have succeeded in ducking for the last two years.The "Freedom of Choice Act" -- one of two identical pro-abortion rights bills that have been languishing in House and Senate committees since 1990 -- drew sharp debate in a House Judiciary subcommittee yesterday. Legal experts, legislators and activists sparred over the constitutionality -- and morality -- of such a law.Hanging over all the wrangling, though, was the knowledge that even if the bill clears the House, survives a likely filibuster attempt and wins approval in the Senate, it is bound to be vetoed by President Bush.

The signs bobbing above the crowd in Hopkins Plaza yesterday read: "I Am The Face Of Pro-Choice America" and "Republicans For Choice" and "Against Abortion? Don't Have One."Where noontime strollers usually wander looking for lunch, Maryland's abortion-rights activists were registering voters, signing volunteers and launching their campaign to win approval in November of a new state law that would keep most abortions legal here.On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Pennsylvania law that limits abortions.

Within minutes of an important Supreme Court ruling on abortion today upholding most of the provisions of a restrictive Pennsylvania law, anti-abortion groups in Maryland were saying the court did not go far enough.But abortion-rights groups, also displeased with the ruling, were calling it "bad news" because it appears to give states broad new power to restrict abortions."Roe is still in the picture. We're disappointed to see that it's notoverturned," said Ellen Curro, president and executive director of Vote kNOw Coalition,a Maryland anti-abortion group.

Delegate Donald B. Elliott's attempt to amend an abortion-rights bill by modifying language concerning deformed fetuses was rejected on the House floor Friday.Elliott, R-Carroll, Howard, who opposes abortion, proposed adding one word to the bill that passed the Senate Tuesday unamended.As of Friday, the bill would allow women to have an abortion until the fetus might be able to survive outside the womb. However, at any time during the pregnancy, an abortion would be allowed if the fetus is affected by "genetic defect or serious deformity or abnormality."

Abortion-rights legislators warned yesterday that they are ready to fend off any changes to Maryland's abortion laws after hearing about anti-abortion lawmakers' preliminary plans for legislation. At an organizational meeting this week, a coalition of about 30 legislators discussed the possibility of legislation to tighten the state's parental notification law, which gives doctors the discretion not to inform the parents of a minor seeking an abortion. The group is also considering attempting to remove from the budget public funding for abortion in certain cases and proposing a bill to ban late-term abortions.