Abortion: No Matter How the Court Rules : No amount of law or regulation can eliminate abortions

For most women, the decision to end a pregnancy--to have an abortion--has always been deeply personal and emotionally agonizing. It was so during the 18th and early 19th centuries when abortion was legal under common law in most states before “quickening,” when a woman can feel the fetus move; it was so during the first seven decades of this century when abortion was illegal or severely restricted in many states. And it has been so since 1973, when the Supreme Court, in Roe vs. Wade, declared state limitations on abortion during the first three months of pregnancy to be unconstitutional.

Abortion will remain an anguished choice for most women after the Supreme Court’s decision--however it rules--in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, a case testing the legality of new restrictions on abortion in Pennsylvania. This case provides the opportunity, if the high court chooses to take it later this term, to overturn the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision. The court could, in one extreme, confine its opinion to the Pennsylvania statute or, in the other, rule in favor of a total ban on abortion.

The 1989 Pennsylvania law requires, among other things, a woman to obtain the consent of her husband and then wait 24 hours before having an abortion. Before performing an abortion, doctors must tell a pregnant woman about the growth of her fetus. These restrictions are intended not merely to delay but to erect obstacles to a woman’s right to choose an abortion, a right guaranteed in the Roe decision.

Abortion rights advocates and anti-abortion forces urged the Supreme Court to accept this case after an appeals court last October upheld all provisions of the Pennsylvania law except the spousal notification requirement. Many fear, and others hope, that the conservative majority will continue its erosion of abortion rights. It began in 1989, when the court upheld a Missouri law that bars the use of public funds for abortions, and continued with last term’s decision upholding a ban on abortion counseling in federally funded clinics. Pennsylvania is one of several states, including Utah and Louisiana, that recently passed restrictive abortion laws.

Regardless of those laws or the court’s final ruling in this case, many women who do not want to have a child will still seek abortions. Untold thousands of women did so each year when abortion was illegal, when their doctors were subject to criminal prosecution and imprisonment, and when a botched procedure put them at risk of death or permanent injury. Few women choose abortion cavalierly. Most act out of economic or emotional desperation and often with great regret. So too will women continue to choose abortion, even if it again becomes illegal or severely restricted.

That’s why the divisive battle over abortion will continue in legislatures and in Congress. Having reopened this dispute, the Supreme Court cannot now “settle” it by restricting abortions. The high court’s recent abortion decisions have served to create a patchwork of state laws, some banning virtually all abortions, others permitting early abortions and all fanning the flames of activism on both sides. None of it is a hopeful sign for the future of legal abortions.