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.

No one on either side of the intractable abortion debate was sorry Monday to learn that Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of first-degree murder. And in their reactions to the verdict, both opponents of abortion and advocates for abortion rights agreed that the Gosnell case was indicative of a problem. They defined that problem, however, in completely different ways. Michael Ciccocioppo, executive director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, said in an e-mailed statement: "For the sake of all Gosnell's victims, let us never forget the rampant disregard for life that was allowed to continue for decades in our state.

Archbishop Charles Chaput, speaking for the first time since abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell was convicted of murder, said Tuesday the verdicts in the case "will surprise very few. " Although the church opposes capital punishment, Chaput in a statement said nothing about the possibility that Gosnell could be sentenced to death for his three first-degree murder convictions. The head of the archdiocese of Philadelphia instead focused mainly on the church's opposition to abortion.

WASHINGTON - President Obama vowed Friday to join Planned Parenthood in fighting against what he said are efforts by states to turn women's health back to the 1950s, before the Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide, and singled out the GOP-governed states of North Dakota and Mississippi for criticism. "When politicians try to turn Planned Parenthood into a punching bag, they're not just talking about you," Obama said, becoming the first sitting president to address the abortion-rights group in person.

WASHINGTON - Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2012 and an abortion opponent, said Thursday that antiabortion activists should try to build a broad coalition and find common ground with supporters of abortion rights as a way to advance their agenda. Ryan (R., Wis.) said in a speech to the Susan B. Anthony List that those who oppose abortion "need to work with people who consider themselves pro-choice - because our task isn't to purge our ranks. It's to grow them.

When the Rev. Max Myers announced his candidacy last week for the Democratic nomination for governor of Pennsylvania, rival John Hanger dumped a load of "oppo" on his head. Who? What? Most Keystone State voters have not yet, it is safe to say, tuned in to the 2014 governor's race, but the competition to replace Gov. Corbett grows more heated by the day. At least a dozen have declared, said they're considering it, or have been listed as likely suspects. Hanger, the former state environmental secretary who was the first announced candidate, felt the need to deploy negative "opposition research" to attack the second, Myers, an ordained Pentecostalist minister from Cumberland County, as a religious zealot.

Accord targets discipline bias JACKSON, Miss. - The U.S. Justice Department said Friday that it has reached a deal with a Mississippi school district to end discriminatory disciplinary practices in which black students face harsher punishment than whites for similar misbehavior. The agreement comes after a federal investigation that found that black students in the Meridian Public School District are five times more likely than whites to be suspended from classes and often got longer suspensions for comparable misbehavior.

By Gregory J. Sullivan The March 11 issue of the New Yorker contains a long profile of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg by staff writer Jeffrey Toobin. The article is in many respects an embarrassing love letter from Toobin to the jurist. Nevertheless, in its muddled discussion of constitutional matters, the article ("Heavyweight: How Ruth Bader Ginsburg has moved the Supreme Court") shows how ideology in our basic law rots what federal appellate Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III has identified as "the most basic and honorable of all judicial traditions, that republican virtue of judicial restraint.

Abortion remains legal 40 years after the U.S. Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade , though not for lack of trying. Protecting abortion rights has been four decades of playing defense. In the last two years, state legislatures have enacted a record 135 abortion restrictions. Access is being seriously compromised, not through the courts but in state capitals. Nearly two-thirds of Americans are opposed to overturning Roe , according to a Pew poll, but the political climate hardly reflects that opinion.

Sierra Leone electing leader FREETOWN, Sierra Leone - Sierra Leoneans were choosing Saturday between keeping a president who has expanded health care and paved roads or electing an opposition candidate to lead this war-scarred nation still recovering a decade later despite its mineral riches. The election marked the third presidential vote since the West African nation's 11-year conflict ended in 2002, a brutal war during which rebels tortured victims and conscripted child soldiers.