U.S. high court strikes down rules tightening abortions

Press, 13 June 1986, Page 6

U.S. high court strikes down rules tightening abortions

By

TOM BRIDGMAN,

NZPA

Washington The United States Supreme Court has reaffirmed its decision of 'January 23, 1973, which legalised abortion, striking down a state’s regulations that would have made abortions more difficult to get. The 5-4 vote is seen as a defeat for pro-life groups and the Reagan Administration. The Court said that Pennsylvania regulations would have Interfered with women’s Constitutional right to end their pregnancies. Mr Justice Harry Blackmun, author of the original decision in 1973, also wrote yesterday’s ruling, noting that the abortion debate had been bitter and that the issue “raises moral and

tions over which honourable persons can disagree sincerely and profoundly.”

“Few decisions are more personal and intimate, more properly private or more basic to individual dignity and autonomy that a woman’s decision — with the guidance of her physician and within limits specified (in the Court's original ruling) — whether to end her pregnancy. “A woman’s right to make, that choice freely is fundamental.”

States “are not free, under the guise of protecting maternal health or potential life to intimidate women into continuing pregnancies.” The Pennsylvania law, which required parental or judicial consent for minors and informed consent for each woman

wanting an abortion, wholly subordinated Constitutional privacy interests and concerns with maternal health “in an effort to deter a woman from making a decision that, with her physician, is hers to make.”

The Pennsylvania law had also required detailed physical reports, printed information for each woman wanting an abortion, a second doctor to help save the unborn child and the use of the abortion method most likely to produce a Hive birth unless it posed a significant risk to the woman.

Dissenting in the decision was the Court’s conservative group, led by the Chief Justice, Mr Warren Burger. He said he rejected the idea, of abortion on deand said the origi-

nal decision had to be reexamined.

“Today the Court astonishingly goes so far as to say that the state may not even require that a woman contemplating an abortion be provided with accurate medical . information concerning the risks inherent in the medical procedure which she is about to undergo and the availability of state-funded alternatives,” he said. In 1973 the Court held that a woman had an absolute right to an abortion during the first three months of pregnancy; in the next three a state may regulate to protect the health of women, but restrictions must be medically necessary, and in the last three the state may restrict or prohibit abortions.

Charles Fried, the

Solicitor-General, said it would be “slightly futile” to go back to the Court and have another attempt at overturning the decision of 1973 because the Court’s composition had not changed. The majority in favour was one less than last time, he said.

“It was a defeat in the sense that the position we urged was not adopted by the Court,” said Mr Fried. Anti-abortion groups have vowed to keep up the fight against the 1973 decision.

“We are pursuing all of the legitimate and Constitutional ways open to us. to redress the injustice of a corrupt social policy of abortion on demand,” said the Rev. Edward Bryce, director of the pro-life office for the national conference of catholic bishops.