Pennsylvania Seeks Abortion Court Test : Law: State’s appeal of a ruling voiding part of its new statute increases chances the justices will rule on Roe vs. Wade before party conventions.

Pennsylvania state attorneys Monday sought an election-year showdown at the Supreme Court on the volatile abortion issue.

Although he has three months to appeal a recent ruling that struck down part of its new antiabortion law, Pennsylvania Atty. Gen. Ernie Preate sent appeal papers to the high court Monday and urged the justices to rule on the case during this term, which ends in July.

“I want this issue resolved as quickly as possible,” Preate said.

Lawyers on both sides of the case said that the state’s speedy appeal greatly increases the chance that the Supreme Court will decide before the next presidential election whether to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling that made abortion a “fundamental right.”

“This pretty much locks them (the justices) into deciding the case by next summer,” said Roger K. Evans, director of litigation for the Planned Parenthood Federation. “They will be announcing an abortion ruling on the eve of the political conventions.”

Because the Pennsylvania statute restricts abortion, it cannot stand if Roe vs. Wade remains the law, attorneys said.

Last month, attorneys for Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union invited such a showdown at the high court over the continuing validity of Roe vs. Wade.

In October, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia upheld parts of a 1989 Pennsylvania law that regulated--but did not ban--abortion. For example, pregnant women who seek an abortion are required to wait 24 hours after contacting a doctor. They also are required under the law to hear about alternatives, such as adoption. The appeals court said that these regulations did not put an “undue burden” on the woman’s right to choose abortion.

But the appeals court struck down a provision of the law that would have required women to notify a spouse before having an abortion.

Rather than narrowly contest the rulings that upheld parts of the Pennsylvania law, lawyers for the ACLU and Planned Parenthood asked the high court to rule squarely on whether “a woman’s right to choose abortion is a fundamental right protected by the U.S. Constitution.”

Abortion rights advocates conceded that they had their eye on the political calendar. If the conservative Supreme Court was going to overturn Roe vs. Wade, they wanted the ruling announced in 1992 before the presidential election, rather than in 1993.

But the timing of the court’s decision rested in the state’s hands. Had the Pennsylvania state attorney taken the full 90 days to appeal the part of the ruling that struck down the law, the justices would not have acted on the joint appeal until spring, too late to hear arguments and issue a ruling during the current term.

Instead, Monday’s action increases the pressure on the justices to act on the case during the spring.

When appeals are filed at the high court, law clerks are assigned to read the papers and write a memo for the justices on the facts of the case, the lower court ruling and the issues raised in the appeal. Once those memos have been completed, the appeal is put on the list of appeals to be considered by the justices. This can take as little as a month or as long as two months.

Each Friday morning when the court is in session, the justices review a hundred or more appeals, deciding which ones are worthy of being considered and ruled upon.

The court hears arguments in cases only until the end of April. The attorneys are also given three months to file briefs and prepare their arguments. Under that schedule, the justices have until late January to decide whether to hear the appeals in the Pennsylvania case if it is to rule by summer.