Abortion Opponents to Press States to Legislate Wide-Ranging Curbs

WASHINGTON —  Anti-abortion leaders, plotting ways to capitalize on the Supreme Court’s recent decision that allows states to limit abortions, said Monday that they will press state legislatures for a string of restrictive measures, including bans on abortions sought for financial hardship, life style disruption or sex selection.

“This is part of the counterattack that begins today to end abortion on demand in the United States,” state lobbyists attending a strategy conference were told by David O’Steen, executive director of the National Right to Life Committee.

Leaders were encouraged that the Webster decision last July had opened the way for states to limit access to abortion, even though the ruling stopped short of overturning the landmark Roe vs. Wade ruling that made the practice legal in 1973.

Upholds Missouri Law

The Webster decision upheld a Missouri statute that bans abortions in public hospitals, forbids public employees from abortion counseling and requires doctors to test the viability of fetuses carried by women believed to be at least 20 weeks’ pregnant when they seek abortions. Anti-abortion leaders urged that other states be pushed to adopt the Missouri statute.

However, with abortion-rights activists aggressively moving to recover from the Webster ruling, anti-abortion leaders stressed the need to seek legislation that is “reasonable” and “mainstream.”

“We are going to have to reaffirm to state legislators that there is pro-life support out there,” said Missouri Rep. Judith O’Connor, a sponsor of the restrictive state law upheld in the Webster case. “Now is the time . . . not to go overboard--to make sure that bills can be argued from a reasonable point of view.”

In California, anti-abortion activists face what Sacramento lobbyist Janet Carroll called “a Legislature quite evenly divided on the abortion issue” and a state Supreme Court that “has been reluctant to take up the issue in recent years.”

Carroll, associate western director for the National Right to Life Committee, said that the group will push to outlaw abortions performed because the prospective parents do not like the sex of the fetus, as determined by medical tests.

Although such cases are probably few and the law would be hard to enforce, she said, it might have a deterrent effect on doctors and pregnant women.

Carroll said that the group also would seek to extend manslaughter coverage for fetuses killed in drunk-driver accidents or battered-woman cases. But not much more legislation would be attempted in California, she added with a laugh, because “this is not a Legislature that is really looking forward to dealing with the abortion issue.”

National leaders placed primary emphasis on proposals to outlaw abortions based on birth control or sex selection.

O’Steen said a survey had found that more than 90% of abortions are obtained for reasons having nothing to do with the woman’s endangered health or with rape, incest or possible physical damage to the unborn child. These are so-called “hard cases” accepted by many otherwise opposed to abortion.

Yet, O’Steen added, opinion polls show that people overwhelmingly oppose abortion for such “birth control” reasons as life style disruption or financial hardship.

Thus, he concluded, a birth control ban would be “a very good place to cut the issue--it’s what abortion in America is all about.”

Some leaders conceded privately that such a ban would be difficult to enforce, but O’Steen said that just forcing legislators to vote on it would have strong political value.

“If they oppose this bill, they will be supporting abortion in circumstances where up to 80% of their constituents disagree with them,” O’Steen said.

Another proposed measure would require that women considering an abortion be informed about the status of their fetuses’ development, about the risks of the surgical procedure and about alternatives such as adoption. A Supreme Court ruling in 1985 struck down all “informed consent” laws, but Olivia Gans of American Victims of Abortion said that the Webster decision had provided the opportunity for states to try again.

Other legislative proposals outlined at the conference would require that fathers be notified before an abortion and be able to seek court intervention; that parents consent to a minor’s abortion; that adoption agencies receive public funding, and that governments be required to publish information about “the humanity of the unborn child and the availability of alternatives to abortion.”