Abortion marches on

AT THE same time that pro-life demonstrators, marching to the Capitol on the 19th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, received a message of support from President Bush, events were changing the shape of the issue. The Supreme Court decision to hear Pennsylvania's restrictive abortion law has payed the way for abortion laws to be returned to where they were until 1973, when an imperial Burger Court stepped in to overturn the laws of all fifty states.

The cunning of the Pennsylvania law is that it addresses in a single statute all those aspects of the abortion controversy on which popular sentiment is clearly on the side of the right-to-life movement. The law does not outlaw abortion, even in its later stages, but it does require that minors consult with their parents about their decision, that women consult with their husbands, and that there be a 24-hour waiting period after women are provided with information about abortion in order to assure their informed consent to the procedure. We look forward to Bill Clinton or Bob Kerrey vowing to enact a national law to protect a teenager's inalienable right to abort her child without consulting her mother and father.

This dichotomy between the mass of divided Americans and the militant Democratic position of federally subsidized abortion on demand was manifest at last week's rally. There, pro-choice hecklers, no more than a thousand or so, displayed such signs as "Keep Your Cross Out of My Crotch" and proclaimed allegiance to groups as "diverse" as the Revolutionary Communist League and the assorted lesbian groups (for whom we would have thought abortion a largely theoretical concern). The New York Times only confirmed this dichotomy between the abortion-on-demand crowd and normal America when it reported that "seventy thousand people took part in the demonstrations." Though the paper of record conceded the pro-life group was larger, this was on the order of writing that the combined circulation of NATIONAL REVIEW and the Reader's Digest is 28,150,000.

Much obviously depends upon the scope of the Court's decision itself. It would not be surprising if the Court sustained the Pennsylvania law on narrow grounds, leaving Roe still shakily standing. It might take the far more prohibitive Louisiana and Utah statutes, now percolating through the judicial process, to provide the occasion of its final demise. The breadth of this year's decision will depend in part on the political antennae of the Court and in larger part on two individuals, both of them appointed by President Bush, who have not yet publicly shared their thoughts on Roe - David Souter and Clarence Thomas. Apart from these two, there are probably four votes on the Court to Abandon Roe at the earliest opportunity; Sandra O'Connor, who might join in upholding the Pennsylvania law, would nevertheless perpetuate the uncertainty by inquiring of every challenged law whether it would "unduly burden" the abortion "right."

Whether or not Roe enjoys a twentieth anniversary, it now seems certain that it will be curtailed substantially. What is equally certain is that the abortion debate will not be quelled, but will only be shifted to another (and far more appropriate) forum.