LIHU’E — Keeping step with hundreds of activists on both sides of the abortion issue, a group of anti-abortionists from Kaua’i picketed near Wilcox Memorial Hospital Saturday. It was the 27th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe
LIHU’E — Keeping step with hundreds of activists on both sides of the abortion
issue, a group of anti-abortionists from Kaua’i picketed near Wilcox Memorial
Hospital Saturday.
It was the 27th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court
decision in Roe v. Wade, the case that legalized abortion
nationwide.
Spokespersons for both Wilcox Hospital and the pickets declined
to comment when contacted by The Garden Island.
Similar events throughout
the nation come in advance of Monday’s annual March for Life rally in
Washington, and a day after a federal judge in Washington ordered seven
abortion protesters not to obstruct access to reproductive health care clinics
in the Washington area.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler
came in response to a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department in June
1998.
The permanent injunction prohibits the defendant within 20 feet of
any reproductive health facility within the Washington area.
In its 1973
ruling, the Supreme Court said the constitutional right to privacy “is broad
enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her
pregnancy.”
On March 13,1970, three years before the Supreme Court’s Roe v
Wade decision, Hawaii legislators enacted laws giving women in Hawaii
unrestricted access to legalized abortions, becoming the first state in the
nation to do so.
But in recent years legislation to limit or restrict
access to abortions has surfaced in the Hawaii Legislature.
Five bills
requiring young women to obtain the consent of or notify their parents prior to
an abortion and two bill banning so called “partial birth” abortions are in
committees in the 2000 Legislature.
The Roe v Wade decision has been under
attack nationally as states move to place restrictions on matters related to
abortion.
Newly released data by the National Abortion and Reproductive
Rights Action League (NARAL) shows that abortion procedures are on the decline.
Sexuality education and access to contraception are two of the most
effective means to protect unintended pregnancy, according to NARAL.
A
trend that is also gaining attention with the younger population is the
concept of abstinence and making group pledges to refrain from pre-marital
sex.
