ABORTION'S SHRINKING MAJORITY

The right-to-life movement loses a pair of controversial decisions

Few issues have divided the nation as sharply in the past 13 years as Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision affirming women's constitutional right to abortion. Last week it became apparent that states' efforts to regulate abortion are having an equally divisive effect on the high court. In overturning a Pennsylvania law designed to discourage women from seeking abortions, Justice Harry Blackmun and four colleagues ringingly reaffirmed the court's 1973 landmark ruling. But four dissenters, including Chief Justice Warren Burger, sharply questioned the ever widening scope of Roe and subsequent decisions. If states cannot impose some limits on abortion,...

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