Vacancy to renew fight over future of abortion

The surprise retirement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor – considered a key vote keeping abortion widely legal in the United States – throws into question the future of the procedure’s availability and reignites a long-simmering and emotionally charged debate.

In losing O’Connor, the moderate voice on the court who created the current legal standard that restrictions on abortion should not place an “undue burden” on women, the stage is set for someone cut from more conservative cloth to take her place.

Those on the front lines of the battle over abortion say her retirement has an even greater impact than would the resignation of the ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist, an abortion opponent whose potential replacement would be an “even exchange,” as one advocate said.

O’Connor’s absence will be felt immediately. The court has already agreed to hear two abortion cases next fall.

“We’re not talking theory. We’re talking reality,” said the Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Washington-based Christian Defense Coalition. “By January of next year, decisions will come out of the court on abortion. Status quo in the Supreme Court has really gone out the window.”

“It could change everything for women,” said Wendy Royalty, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Maryland.

O’Connor, appointed by President Reagan, was never embraced by those on the right, who picketed her confirmation hearings. After Reagan left office, though, she made some of her crucial decisions on abortion.

In Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, the 1992 case that largely reaffirmed abortion rights, though did not leave them intact, O’Connor was one of those who wrote for the majority. In 2000, the last time the court took up a major abortion case, she was a member of the 5-4 majority that struck down a Nebraska ban on a late-term abortion procedure that opponents call “partial-birth” mainly because it did not make an exception for women’s health.

It is unlikely, even with O’Connor’s retirement and another, that Roe would be overturned – a majority of the remaining justices still favor letting the decision stand. Besides Rehnquist, only two other justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, have said Roe v. Wade should be overturned.