Anti-abortion measures fall, but neither side giving an inch

Anti-abortion measures fall, but neither side giving an inch
By Judy Peres
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published November 9, 2006


SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- Anti-abortion measures on three state ballots were roundly defeated this week, but advocates on both sides of what is arguably the nation's most divisive social and political issue said Wednesday the battle is far from over.

Abortion-rights supporters who helped defeat South Dakota's near-total ban on abortion were glowing with success late Tuesday.

"This fight has made us so much stronger," said Kate Looby of Planned Parenthood, which runs the state's only abortion clinic. "As our opponents grow bolder and stronger," she added, "we'll have to equal that."

Less than a mile away, Leslee Unruh, who ran the campaign in support of the abortion ban, threatened to "put Planned Parenthood out of business."

"We'll never, never, never give up," Unruh told cheering supporters, many with tears in their eyes. Referring to the deeply held religious beliefs that inform much of the anti-abortion movement, she added: "We get our energy from the source that keeps on giving. . . . There's room at the cross."

Unruh's strategy had been to pass an abortion ban that would be challenged in court and be appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Roe vs. Wade is the 1973 decision that gave women a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy and limited how states may interfere with that right.

Some anti-abortion groups had opposed the South Dakota strategy from the outset, calling it a long shot that could backfire. Americans United for Life and the National Right to Life Committee advocate an incremental chipping away at abortion rights through regulations that restrict access to the procedure, rather than a direct challenge to Roe vs. Wade.

Daniel McConchie, vice president of Americans United for Life, predicted last March, when South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds signed the ban, that such a "frontal assault" would just "inflame the pro-choice movement and help them raise lots of money."

That seemed positively prescient on Wednesday, as the anti-abortion movement was toting up its losses and the Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments in two cases challenging the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.

In addition to repealing the abortion ban in South Dakota, voters defeated measures in California and Oregon that would have required parental notification and a 48-hour waiting period before minors could get abortions--the type of regulatory restriction McConchie supports. Nevertheless, he said, "if you stack up the successes" of the two approaches, all 12 of the direct challenges since 1992 have failed, whereas hundreds of laws have been enacted restricting who can get an abortion and under what circumstances.

The "partial-birth abortion" statute or any parental-consent law could end up making a big dent in abortion, he said, even though they don't ban the procedure altogether.

"The court could extricate itself gradually" from protecting abortion rights, he said. The justices "could back away from the broad health exception by, for example, limiting it to physical health."

Abortion-rights groups noted that their side won a number of Election Day victories in addition to defeating the three anti-abortion ballot measures:

- There are at least 20 more lawmakers in the new Congress who support abortion rights than in the outgoing Congress.

- The next speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to be Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California, who supports abortion rights.

- And Kansas voters rejected Atty. Gen. Phill Kline, the anti-abortion crusader who campaigned on his efforts to seize women's confidential medical records from reproductive health centers.

But the American Life League said Wednesday that the abortion-rights victories would be "short lived." The anti-abortion group said the "pro-life leaders of South Dakota" would keep going back to their legislature until they succeed, and those in other states would see that "a victory for the babies, while difficult, is not impossible."

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jperes@tribune.com