Word: life
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...majority that adopted Roe dwindled with each new Reagan appointment, leaving a deeply divided bench. Just how divided will be apparent when the court hands down its decision on Webster, probably this summer. The case grew out of a 1986 Missouri law that in a nonbinding preamble asserts that life begins at conception. The law forbids abortions by doctors or hospitals that receive state funds. Doctors who get public money would be prohibited even from mentioning abortion to their patients...
...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...
...dimensions of the problem would be smaller than many fear, because banning abortion would encourage people to be more cautious about sex. "Once the law tells us that abortion is illegal, there will be far fewer pregnancies to abort," insists Dr. John Willke, president of the National Right to Life Committee...
...nearly every election and threatening to fracture both parties. Like civil rights and the Viet Nam War in the 1960s, abortion could be the great preoccupation of the 1990s. "It will be a battle for years and years and years," says Samuel Lee, executive director of Missouri Citizens for Life, which helped write the law at issue in the Webster case. "I don't think it's ever going to go away...
...Republican Party had a strong antiabortion plank in its 1988 platform, and George Bush has become a steadfast pro-lifer, though he got there by a meandering path. He was once quoted as opposing a constitutional amendment to declare that life begins at conception, and he once supported public funding for some abortions. On his first working day in the White House, however, the President addressed a group of pro-life marchers in Washington by telephone hookup, calling abortion "an American tragedy." Yet Republicans also know that their party's identification with the antiabortion cause could cost them votes...