ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 23, 1996 TAG: 9601230089
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Emboldened by the Republican majority in Congress, tens of thousands of yelling, chanting abortion opponents marched in protest to the Supreme Court building Monday, the 23rd anniversary of the court's decision legalizing most abortions.
The marchers used the annual protest to exhort President Clinton to sign legislation limiting a woman's legal right to end a pregnancy.
Advancing along Constitution Avenue to Capitol Hill, demonstrators chanted repeatedly: ``What do we want? Life! When do we want it? Now!''
As they demonstrated, however, the Supreme Court dealt a new blow to efforts to enact new abortion curbs. Without comment, the justices refused to let Pennsylvania set strict reporting rules that must be satisfied before Medicaid funds can be paid for abortions sought by victims of rape or incest or by women for whom giving birth would endanger their lives.
An estimated 60,000 people participated in the march, U.S. Park Police spokeswoman Sandra Alley said. The March for Life Fund, the event organizer, said about 125,000 took part.
This year's official turnout on a crisp, sunny day was up from about 45,000 at last year's march and from 1994, when 35,000 marchers braved an ice storm. An anti-abortion march in Washington in April 1990 drew the biggest crowd, an estimated 200,000, in response to an abortion-rights gathering a year earlier attended by 300,000.
Clinton, who supports abortion rights, has threatened an election-year veto of Congress' first attempt to prohibit an abortion procedure since the landmark 1973 decision in Roe vs. Wade. The bill, which bans a rare process used late in pregnancy, passed the Senate last month by a 54-44 vote.
Republican presidential hopeful Rep. Robert Dornan of California told Monday's crowd that with elections scheduled in 288 days, the abortion foes' mission ``above and beyond everything is to get a pro-life person into the job as executive leader of the free world.''
Abortion remains among America's most deeply emotional and divisive public and political issues, despite the predominance of tax and budget matters on the campaign-trail debate.
Marchers came to Washington in chartered buses and carried signs on the muddy Capitol Ellipse bearing slogans demanding ``Stop Abortion Now'' and saying ``The Natural Choice is Life.''
Pro-choice advocates used the anniversary to celebrate the Roe vs. Wade decision but to warn that abortion opponents have launched a ``full-scale assault'' in state legislatures to limit women's right to terminate pregnancies.
LENGTH: Medium: 55 linesby CNB