Time and again

Abortion rights under siege since 1973

Twenty-six years ago today, the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Roe v. Wade won women across the nation the right to a legal abortion. The decision stated that "the right of privacy ... founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty ... is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."

The Court's decision was a giant leap forward for women's rights. But since 1973, pro-life forces began a serious mobilization to overturn Roe v. Wade. Using a variety of tactics to eliminate legal abortion, such as political lobbying and picketing abortion clinics, their strategies have unfortunately resulted in some successes. And Roe v. Wade's premise limiting the ability of states to regulate abortion services is being damaged - and the Court has shown little concern for the severe impact of state revisions on abortion. Roe v. Wade has lost the vitality and legal influence it once had, and in today's political climate, is at risk of being overturned.

The long-range goal of the anti-abortion movement has always been to outlaw abortion. Women's right to an abortion has eroded over the past 26 years in both legal and social realms. Major setbacks have included the Hyde Amendment, passed by Congress in 1976, which banned Medicaid funding for abortions unless the woman's life was in danger. Since more than one-third of all abortions were funded by Medicaid before the Hyde amendment, it is impossible to count the number of women who were harmed and discriminated against because they were poor.

The Constitutional right to abortion has received several other severe blows. Specific states have passed various provisions including two-parent notification for underage females who desire abortions, even if they do not have legal custody of the young woman. In Rust v. Sullivan (1991), the Court upheld the gag rule that prohibits counselors and physicians at federally funded family-planning clinics from providing information and making referrals about abortion. The regulations require that all pregnant women be referred to prenatal care providers and be told abortion is not considered an "appropriate method of family planning." The erosion of support for legal abortion is serious because of these sorts of continuous attacks. Reinstating spousal consent and prohibitions against the use of public facilities for abortion services have made the procedure less accessible and more difficult for increasing numbers of women.

Equally destructive is the illegal onslaught on reproductive rights. Anti-abortionists are taking the law into their own hands - and acting above it. In recent years, the nation has witnessed a startling, violent trend - the murder of doctors who perform abortions and the bombing of abortion clinics. More than 80 percent of all abortion providers have been picketed or experienced other forms of harassment such as property destruction and invasions of facilities.

The Constitution that protects women's right to an abortion is the same one that protects the right to free speech by anti-abortion activists. Attacks on abortion doctors by activists are not only illegal but wildly hypocritical. As much as some people may believe that a fetus has a right to live, they do not have the right to decide that doctors who perform abortions must die. "Pro-life" cannot refer to the idea that some humans are more deserving of life than others; if anti-abortionists define abortion as murder, some of their extreme supporters are also committing the crime they so vehemently protest.

A woman's right to safe, accessible and legal abortions must be protected. Those who believe in safe abortions must be active in the political battle for accessible abortions as part of the struggle for reproductive freedom for all women.

01-22-99