Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 8, 1992 TAG: 9201080079
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From the Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
ABORTION BAN THREAT PREDICTED
Thirteen states are likely to ban or severely restrict abortion if the Supreme Court overturns the Roe vs. Wade decision, the National Abortion Rights Action League said Tuesday."We are moving more toward Romania," said the league's executive director, Kate Michelman, referring to the regime of former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, which forced women and girls to carry pregnancies to term.
By the league's reckoning, the 14.6 million women of child-bearing age who live in 13 "highest risk" states would be "at immediate risk" of losing their right to abortion if the Supreme Court reversed Roe vs. Wade. The 1973 ruling established abortion as a fundamental constitutional right.
The court, most of whose justices were appointed by former President Reagan and President Bush, has grown increasingly hostile to abortion rights. Many experts believe the court is ready to reverse its 1973 decision.
"The loss of this right is imminent," Michelman said. "No woman is safe and every state is at risk when opponents of choice control the Supreme Court and the White House, and Congress is unable to override President Bush's vetoes."
Louisiana and Utah ranked as the states most likely to immediately ban abortions by the league's analysis. Not only do their elected officials oppose abortion, they also have enacted laws that would ban virtually all abortions. In both instances, the laws have been put on hold while they are challenged in the federal courts.
Next in line among the "highest risk" states are Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, Nebraska, Wisconsin and South Dakota. In each of those states, the governor opposes the legal right to choose abortion, as does a majority of the state legislators.
"Another 18.4 million women of childbearing age live in the 19 `high' and `moderate' risk states," Michelman said. "They, too, are at serious risk of losing their right to choose, of being forced to turn to the deadly back alleys for health care, of having their lives and families destroyed by unplanned and impossible pregnancies."
Those 19 states, in the order of the asserted risk, are North Dakota, Minnesota, Kentucky, Idaho, Arkansas, Indiana, Rhode Island, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Iowa, Illinois, Texas, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, Delaware, Virginia and New Jersey.