Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 12, 1995 TAG: 9508140066
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
As with all abortion matters, those in favor and those against have opposing views about the impact of Norma McCorvey's decision to join forces with the anti-abortion Operation Rescue. She was the plaintiff in the 1973 Supreme Court case that defined women's right to abortion.
Jubilant anti-abortion leaders said McCorvey's change of heart is a blow to her former allies.
``I don't think there is any question about the fact that the timing could not have been worse for the pro-abortion movement,'' Ralph Reed, the Christian Coalition's executive director, said Friday.
``It's just one more straw that breaks the camel's back of the pro-choice movement on Capitol Hill,'' Reed said. ``It's a momentum robber, it's a demoralizer, it's distracting, it's one more fight that you'd rather not get into if you're a pro-abortion lobbyist.''
On the other side, abortion-rights activists called attention to McCorvey's statement that she still supports a woman's right to an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, even while opposing second-trimester abortions.
``The fact she still feels that abortion should be safe and legal [in the first three months] makes sort of strange bedfellows with her and Operation Rescue, and that probably will limit their ability to exploit her,'' said Ann Stone, chairwoman of Republicans for Choice, the nation's largest GOP pro-choice organization.
The abortion-rights activists also contend that McCorvey's decision is a personal one that won't affect the battles being waged in Congress and statehouses around the nation.
``I think the real threat that we face as a movement is that the radical right now controls Congress and many state legislatures, and wants to make abortion illegal,'' said Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. ``That's the threat. The threat does not come from any one woman's decision to oppose abortion.''
Feminist lawyer Gloria Allred, who represented McCorvey for six years, said, ``It has some propaganda appeal for the anti-choice side, but I don't think it's going to have any impact on the feelings of the public.''
President Clinton said in an interview being aired Friday night on MTV that McCorvey's decision was personal, a choice that abortion-rights advocates say every woman should be allowed to make.
``There is a wholesale assault on the right to choose going on in the Congress now in all kinds of little, indirect ways,'' Clinton said. ``And I hope we can beat it back, because ... I don't think that's the right thing to do.''
As for his own efforts to defend women's right to abortion, Clinton said: ``I think I'm doing everything I can. I certainly have made it absolutely clear where I stand. I have resisted the attempts in the Congress to take away the rights of choice to women in the [military] service, to women who work for the federal government.''
Last week, the Senate voted to bar the use of government insurance to pay for abortions for federal workers, except in cases of rape, incest or the woman's health.
The House, meanwhile, approved measures that would let states deny Medicaid funds for abortions for poor women in cases of rape or incest, ban federal human embryo research outside the womb, and allow medical schools not to provide abortion training to their students.
McCorvey has indicated a desire for a low-key role. Now a filing clerk with Operation Rescue, she said she won't participate in demonstrations and is planning no public appearances beyond one today in Dallas.
McCorvey, pregnant when she agreed in 1970 to become the plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to overturn Texas' anti-abortion statute, never had an abortion. The Supreme Court decision came long after she had the child, which she put up for adoption.
by CNB