DATE: Thursday, October 16, 1997            TAG: 9710160564

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A10  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE:    - Staff writer Laura LaFay

                                            LENGTH:   59 lines

SUPREME COURT'S VIEW OF SPOUSAL NOTIFICATION

Democrat Don Beyer accused Republican opponent Jim Gilmore of advocating an extreme view in saying spousal notification should get serious consideration. Gilmore issued a statement the night before Wednesday's debate, clarifying his statement. He said he wouldn't support spousal notification for abortions because the U.S. Supreme Court has declared it unconstitutional.

An update on the court:

Although the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a number of state restrictions on abortion during the past few years, the justices are unlikely to reconsider their 1992 decision striking down Pennsylvania's spousal notification law, experts and court watchers say.

``In my view, there's absolutely no chance they're going to revisit spousal notification,'' said Simon Heller, a lawyer for the Center for Law and Reproductive Policy in New York.

``Since Casey, the court has not had a full hearing in any case involving state or federal laws that govern abortion,'' he said, referring to Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania vs. Casey.

In Casey, the court affirmed Roe vs. Wade - its decision legalizing abortion - and upheld Pennsylvania's law requiring minors seeking abortions to notify their parents.

The justices struck down the spousal notification aspect of Pennsylvania's law, saying that it was ``likely to prevent a significant number of women from obtaining an abortion.''

``It does not merely make abortions more difficult or expensive to obtain; for many women, it will impose a substantial obstacle,'' Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor and David H. Souter wrote in a joint opinion.

The law required married women to sign statements saying their husbands knew they were having abortions.

Alternatively, the law said, such women could also sign statements saying they had been impregnated by another man; that they had become pregnant because of a marital rape that they reported to police; or that notifying their husbands would cause their husbands to injure them.

Without one of these statements, Pennsylvania physicians were prohibited from performing abortions on married women.

Since deciding Casey in 1992, the justices have steered clear of landmark abortion rights cases.

A case this year upheld the rights of those who protest at abortion clinics. In four other cases since Casey, the court, without entertaining arguments, upheld state laws restricting abortion. But in several more, the justices refused, without comment, to consider the issues.

If the justices agree to hear any abortion rights case in the near future, experts say, they are most likely to choose one involving restrictions on so-called ``partial-birth'' abortion.

``I would expect that, within the next two years, we'll see a so-called partial birth abortion ban before the Supreme Court coming out of one of the state challenges,'' said Vicki Suporta, director of the National Abortion Foundation.

``In the nine lawsuits in which there has been a ruling so far, the (lower) courts have enjoined the ban in whole or in part. So at some point, I imagine the issue will have to be decided by the Supreme Court.''

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