Word: law
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...lower courts have struck down portions of the law. In November the Justice Department surprised many people by jumping into the Webster case to propose that the Supreme Court use the occasion to reverse Roe. While a reversal cannot be ruled out, few court watchers expect it just now. Supreme Court Justices usually prefer to muster a sizable majority behind highly controversial decisions, as they did in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the pivotal -- and unanimous -- 1954 school-desegregation case...
...think some Justices will put a lot of weight on having a stronger majority," says Columbia University law professor Vincent Blasi. "I also think they'll be confident that in the next few years they will get it." With Roe supporters William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and Harry Blackmun all in their 80s, George Bush is likely to be able to make some court appointments...
...Blackmun, the Roe ruling forbids states to restrict a woman's right to abortion in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy. In the second trimester states may restrict abortion only to safeguard the mother's health. Though the court decided that the fetus was not a "person" under the law, it did recognize that states had an interest in protecting "potential life." Because the fetus was considered viable in the final twelve weeks, states were permitted to ban third-trimester abortions, except those necessary to preserve the health of the mother...
Since then, several state legislatures have attempted to test just what restrictions are allowable under Roe. The court has permitted states and the Federal Government to forbid the use of Medicaid funds to pay for abortions that are not necessary to preserve the mother's health. Most other state laws that restrict abortion have been rebuffed by the Justices, but by ever slimmer margins. In 1986, the last time the court took up an abortion case, only a 5- to-4 majority could be mustered to strike down a Pennsylvania "informed consent" law that required women seeking abortion...
...court upholds the Missouri law, even without reversing Roe, legislatures under pressure from pro-lifers can be expected to pass a flurry of measures making abortion more difficult. One likely tactic would be to drive up the cost, now about $235. At this session the court has been asked to consider an Illinois law that would place expensive building and staffing requirements upon abortion facilities. In an earlier case the court disallowed a law that would require first-trimester abortions to be performed in hospitals; just 13% of all current abortions take place there, mostly on an outpatient basis...