Supreme Court OKs Abortion Limits

We want to commend The Times editorial (“Stepping Backward,” July 4) for its response to the Supreme Court’s decision.

The only virtue of the Supreme Court’s unfortunate decision allowing for intrusive state regulation of a women’s right to terminate her pregnancy, is that it did not explicitly overrule Roe vs. Wade. We take little comfort from that fact.

The undercutting of prior precedents by the court, particularly the apparent abandonment of the trimester scheme, is itself a grave setback for the right to reproductive freedom. Under the trimester framework laid down in Roe vs. Wade, almost no regulation of the abortion decision was permitted during the second, and then only as necessary to protect the health of the woman. The court’s action invites the regulation of abortion as a subterfuge for making it impossible for women to obtain an abortion, especially those of limited means.

The decision will embolden and encourage opponents of the right to choice, not only at the state and federal legislative level, but on the streets and at the doors to abortion clinics. We pledge ourselves to meet those challenges in all these forums.

SANDRA KLASKY

SUSAN JACOBY STERN

Co-chairs, Commission on Women’s Rights

American Jewish Congress

Pacific Southwest Region