NATION : Ferraro Joins Pro-Choice Court Plea

Former Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine A. Ferraro joined the sister of a Roman Catholic bishop and a number of nuns today in asking the Supreme Court to uphold women’s right to legal abortion.

Ferraro and the other Catholics, resisting their church’s teaching, signed a friend-of-the-court brief submitted in a Missouri case which advocates on both sides of the abortion issue believe could be a turning point in the emotional and bitter debate.

The brief, organized by Catholics for a Free Choice, an independent national group at odds with the church’s stance against abortion, was signed by several other groups that include nuns and was endorsed as well by Marian Gumbleton, sister of Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, and by theologians Daniel Maguire and Rosemary Radford Reuther.