Abortion Rights

A proponent of abortion rights won a solid victory in the Democratic primary for a state Senate seat in Philadelphia yesterday and will face a strong Republican opponent of abortion in November. The candidate, Allyson Young Schwartz, 41, was a founder of the Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center, an abortion clinic in Center City. She will face incumbent Republican M. Joseph Rocks, a staunch foe of abortion, in the November election. Rocks was unopposed for his party's nomination.

Abortion-rights advocates hoping to moderate the Republican Party's antiabortion plank conceded last night that the platform committee was unlikely to issue a minority report on the issue. Republicans who favor abortion rights needed 27 signatures from the 107-member committee to produce a minority report that would say the party welcomes those who support abortion rights. But Susan Cullman, cochairwoman of the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition, said that they had only about two-thirds of the required signatures and that it appeared unlikely they would get many more before the committee adopts the platform today.

Hundreds of thousands of marchers streamed down Pennsylvania Avenue yesterday, chanting and waving signs supporting abortion rights. There were no official estimates of the size of the crowd, but the rally was huge, with people filling the grassy lawn of the National Mall from the Washington Monument to the Capitol. Organizers put attendance at one million people; the Associated Press reported that various police sources informally estimated the throng at 500,000 to 800,000. Gloria Steinem, the feminist writer and activist, called the march "the biggest in the history of the women's movement in this country," saying the turnout was far larger than a similar march in 1992 attended by an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 people.

Escalating the Republican Party's internal abortion feud, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and two leading social moderates yesterday dismissed the warning of a Christian right leader that the 1996 GOP ticket must oppose abortion rights. Their remarks were a rejoinder to Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition. Reed warned Friday that religious conservative voters would not support the GOP ticket in 1996 if it included an abortion-rights candidate. "Pro-life and pro-family voters, a third of the electorate, will not support . . . a national ticket or a platform that does not share Ronald Reagan's belief in the sanctity of innocent human life," Reed said.

Gov. Whitman renewed her support yesterday for a ban on third-trimester abortions in New Jersey, resurrecting the issue ahead of her U.S. Senate bid, to the consternation of activists on both sides of the debate. The Republican governor made her position known after one of her supporters, State Sen. Joseph M. Kyrillos Jr. (R., Monmouth), proposed a bill this month to prohibit any physician from performing an abortion on a "viable" fetus, a term applied usually between the 21st and 24th week of pregnancy.

In a sign that Democrats again will make abortion a top issue in a New Jersey campaign, national abortion-rights advocates will begin advertising this weekend in support of reelecting U.S. Sen. Robert G. Torricelli. The nation's leading abortion-rights group, the National Abortion Rights Action League, will air radio commercials on behalf of Torricelli as part of a nationwide effort to keep the Senate in Democratic hands. The ads, NARAL director Kate Michelman said, are intended "to begin to alert voters in New Jersey that the right to choose is in danger and it is important to have a pro-choice Senate.

Republicans who want their party to abandon its anti-abortion stance will meet today and may decide on some dramatic ways to address the controversial subject. One possibility under consideration is to run "favorite daughter" candidates against President Bush in next year's primaries. These candidates would not actually run against Bush - they would pledge to support him at the convention - but they would fight for a party platform that includes their views on abortion. "We are not party bashers," said Ann Stone, chairwoman of Republicans for Choice.

With the U.S. Supreme Court in a position to strike down the right to abortion, Planned Parenthood of Chester County announced Monday that it had formed a political arm to take the abortion battle to the electorate. Called Planned Parenthood Advocates, the newly formed group will team up with a statewide coalition, Republicans for Choice, to mobilize voters who support abortion rights. First, the two organizations will attempt to identify Chester County voters who support abortion rights for the April primary election.

Molly Yard thinks this may be the year. It may be, said Yard, the year that abortion-rights groups turn the tide against the anti-abortion lobby in this country. The year that Gov. Casey's staunch position against abortion may cost him a significant chunk of voter support. The year that state Rep. Stephen Freind'santi-abortion monarchy in Haverford Township may begin to crumble. Those were some of Yard's thoughts this week when the president of the National Organization for Women and 1933 Swarthmore College graduate spoke at Lang Concert Hall as part of the school's Social Action Week.

In a potential blow to Republican Barbara Hafer's gubernatorial campaign, state Rep. Karen A. Ritter, the legislature's leading abortion-rights proponent, says she is not supporting Hafer. "While Barbara Hafer is pro-choice," Ritter said, "that's really about the only good thing I know about her. " She said that Hafer was conservative on other issues. "What I'd have to be doing (to support Hafer) is turn my back on everything else that's important to me," Ritter said. As an outgrowth of this feeling, Ritter has formed a political action committee for Democratic abortion-rights candidates - even though it could drain money from another PAC that is working for Hafer's election.

BOSTON - Don't look for a vice presidential shocker from Mitt Romney. His choice of running mate - a search he announced Monday he has begun - will be guided by both his methodical, risk-averse corporate training and the lessons his party learned from Sarah Palin's selection. Preparedness to serve and loyalty to Romney are likely to trump other credentials as the all-but-sure Republican nominee looks to avoid the blowback John McCain faced four years ago with his surprise choice of the little-known, first-term Alaska governor.

GRAND JUNCTION, COLO. - Sensing a possible threat, Mitt Romney criticized Rick Santorum's time in the Senate as "not effective" because of his past support for pork-barrel spending as he worked to fend off an unexpected challenge in the next states to vote. Santorum countered that Romney, the front-runner in the GOP presidential race, "should not be our nominee" because he was "dead wrong on the most important issue of the day" when, as governor, he signed a health-care overhaul in Massachusetts.

NEW YORK - They would never raise a single tax, not under any circumstance, even for war. Nor allow a woman to have an abortion. Nor limit gun owners' rights. In fact, they said, a gun license from one state should be valid in all. So went the tenor of Friday's debate among seven of 10 Republican candidates from Pennsylvania vying to take on Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) next fall. That is, until the subject of the Penn State scandal came up - and one candidate revealed that he had been a victim of childhood sexual abuse.

WICHITA, Kan. - A federal judge ruled Monday that Planned Parenthood would likely succeed in overturning a new Kansas law that would deny the group access to federal family-planning funding, saying he believes the law is unconstitutional and was intended to punish Planned Parenthood for advocating for abortion rights. U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten granted Planned Parenthood of Kansas' request for a temporary injunction blocking the law. The law would require the state to allocate federal family-planning dollars first to public health departments and hospitals, and leave no money for Planned Parenthood or similar groups.

HEY, HOW YA enjoying your 2011 political leadership thus far? Tomorrow's the first day of February so, after a full month of brave-new-world reform and cooperation, I figure I'd check in and see how you like it. What's that? You haven't noticed much difference? Well, clearly you've been too busy shoveling snow to notice the wonderful, sweeping changes taking place all around us. Like what, you say? Like President Obama's bold action to "win the future," or, as Sarah Palin puts it, WTF. Like the president coming to Penn State on Wednesday to, according to the White House, stress "new investments in research and development . . . for energy-efficient buildings.

TRENTON - Gov. Christie, heralded as the "first pro-life governor in New Jersey history," addressed an antiabortion rally on the Statehouse steps Monday and vowed his support. "You have today, and for the rest of my life, an ally," Christie told the activists, adding that antiabortion views need to be expressed "calmly" but with "no ambiguity in how we feel. " Christie's fiscal conservatism has become well-known nationally, but he has not been as vocal on social issues, such as abortion rights.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a likely Republican candidate for the White House in 2012, suggested in an interview with a conservative news service that President Obama should oppose abortion rights because of his race. "The question is - and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer - is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no," Santorum told CNS News, which posted a video of the interview on its website Tuesday. "Well, if that human life is not a person, then, I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, 'We are going to decide who are people and who are not people.

No reason to rush a final judgment Someone once said that though the death penalty has never been proven to prevent crime, it at least prevents one person from committing a crime. Unfortunately, that does not balance the scales when innocent people are executed ("Head opposes execution; the heart can be trickier," Sunday). From a practical point of view, it is more expensive to sentence a criminal to death than incarcerate him for life. Execution is quick, one hopes painless, and certainly final, which doesn't exact the revenge victims would like.

Americans today have so many distractions that few realize their country has been gripped by a critical debate over states' rights that parallels the pre-Civil War argument over preserving the Union. That's not to say people are ready to meet on the battlefield, brother against brother, to settle the current dispute. But today's arguments could have an effect on the role of the federal government that is just as profound. From immigration and health-care reform to abortion rights and gay marriage, states are asserting the right to regulate the legal status and social conduct of their residents.