Rallies Commemorate Abortion Ruling

Demonstrators on both sides of the abortion issue marched at state capitols and cities around the nation Monday to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade ruling, which legalized the procedure.

At least 9,000 people marched against abortion at the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta.

“It may be a long fight,” the Rev. Pat Robertson told demonstrators in Atlanta, but “we will come back this year, we will come back next year, we will come back the year after . . . until sooner or later we have victory.”

At the California Capitol in Sacramento, about 500 people gathered to hear lawmakers and abortion rights activists praise Roe vs. Wade and denounce the Webster decision in a Missouri case that opened the door for states to impose some restrictions on abortion. The demonstrators waved American flags and held signs reading “Pro-woman, Pro-family, Pro-choice.”

Among the speakers was state Sen. Lucy Killea, the San Diego Democrat who won a special election Dec. 5 in a Republican-dominated district after her Roman Catholic bishop banned her from receiving Communion because of her pro-choice stand.

Norma McCorvey, the woman who was “Jane Roe” in Roe vs. Wade, was keynote speaker.

“We’re still fighting and will continue to fight as long as the fight must go on,” she said. “The movement didn’t start with me. I was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

In Los Angeles Monday night, Roman Catholic Archbishop Roger Mahony called for greater unity within the anti-abortion movement and urged anti-abortion activists to demand greater support for their cause from government officials.

“We must call one another to courage, and we must call our elected officials and moral leaders to courage in protecting all created human life,” Mahony said in an address to the nearly 300 people who had gathered at Immaculate Conception Church on West 9th Street for the “Operation Prayer” speech.

As Mahony and other anti-abortion proponents spoke inside the church, some 30 pro-choice demonstrators marched outside.

“We are here to celebrate (the court ruling) and to protest the fact that the archbishop of Los Angeles is supporting the death of women,” said Julie Schollenberger, a spokeswoman for the Clinic Defense Alliance.

Earlier in the day, Sarah Weddington, the Texas lawyer who argued McCorvey’s case before the Supreme Court, told a breakfast in Dallas: “We are here to say we won 17 years ago today, and we will win again.”

On Sunday night, police in San Francisco had cited McCorvey for illegally posting stickers bearing the name “Roe” on city street signs. The signs were on Webster Street. “It was just a prank,” McCorvey told reporters Monday.

In Los Angeles, members of an anti-abortion group placed four mock baby coffins on the sidewalk Monday outside David Starr Jordan High School in protest of a campus health clinic there.

John Madrid, a spokesman for Network of Parents and Students Against School Sex Clinics, said the demonstration was to dramatize to students what is going on at the clinic. But Assistant Principal Joseph Santana said Madrid’s charges that the clinic dispenses birth control and gives abortion advice are unfounded.

In Baton Rouge, La., about a dozen pro-choice demonstrators wrapped 200 feet of purple ribbon around the Statehouse to draw attention to their new Coalition for Reproductive Freedom. The ribbon, they said, symbolized the purple sashes worn by suffragettes who marched for women’s rights earlier in the century.

In Charlotte, N.C., a Planned Parenthood chapter set up three mobile telephones downtown for pro-choice supporters on their lunch breaks to pay $3 to call Gov. James G. Martin and President Bush.

In Trenton, N.J., about 150 protesters marched in front of the New Jersey Statehouse in support of anti-abortion bills, including one that would require minors seeking abortions to notify their parents.

The demonstrators included a group of schoolgirls from Incarnation School in nearby Ewing, N.J., one of whom carried a sign that read: “Real Women Don’t Kill Babies.”

The Nebraska Legislature began debate on a parental notification bill, but the lawmakers in Lincoln adjourned for the day without voting.

In Maine, about three-dozen anti-abortion demonstrators marched on the federal courthouse in Portland, while their opposites lobbied legislators in Augusta.

New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo appeared with Gloria Steinem, a founder of the modern women’s movement, at a conference of family planning advocates in Albany.