Word: court
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...imposing marble-and-mahogany chamber of the U.S. Supreme Court seems too stately a place for dropping a political bombshell. Yet last week, while opposing bands of demonstrators taunted each other with noisy chants and protest signs on the plaza in front of the court, that is precisely what happened. Seven of the nine Justices emerged from behind the red velvet curtain and took their seats. In the hushed chamber, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist read in his singsong, quivering voice excerpts of the long-awaited decision of the divided court in the case of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services...
...opinion, a conservative plurality of three members, joined in part by Reagan appointees Antonin Scalia and Sandra Day O'Connor, suggested that as early as next year the court may overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that established the right to terminate a pregnancy. A Missouri law banning the use of state facilities and prohibiting state employees from performing abortions was upheld on the ground that it "leaves a pregnant woman with the same choices as if the State had chosen not to operate any public hospitals at all." Another provision, requiring physicians to perform tests to determine...
Nevertheless, O'Connor is the pro-choice movement's best hope in the three abortion cases that the court agreed to hear in its next term, which begins in October. Two of the cases involve parental notification; the third, from Illinois, requires that facilities where abortions are performed must meet stringent hospital-level licensing standards, a step so costly that it could force many clinics to shut down. Any of the cases could give the Justices an opportunity to attack Roe directly...
Despite the outcry, the court's ruling has limited practical impact: any woman can still legally get an abortion, even in Missouri. The Truman Medical Center in Kansas City and the University of Missouri hospital in Columbia immediately stopped performing abortions, since they receive public funds. But Reproductive Health Services, a St. Louis clinic that challenged the Missouri law in the high court, and other private facilities remain open. The closing of publicly subsidized facilities could be construed as a back-door way to deny otherwise permissible abortions to the poor. No restrictions are ever likely to thwart the ability...
...other issues. But that hard core of pro-life sentiment is slightly outnumbered by the 32% who say they would never vote for an office-seeker who advocates restricting a woman's right to obtain an abortion. The poll also found that 57% do not believe that the court should overturn its ruling in Roe, while 61% disagree with the decision in the Webster case. Only 31% favor new state laws restricting access to abortion, while 57% oppose such limitations...