Ruling Likely to Spawn New Legal and Political Sparring in California : Outlook: Marchers from both sides take to Orange County streets. The decision draws mixed reactions.

The Supreme Court ruling giving states new power to restrict abortion will have little immediate effect in California, but experts and activists on both sides agreed that legal and political battles over the issue are likely in the state.

The high court’s decision drew mixed reactions from abortion foes and supporters alike Monday, as demonstrators took to opposite sides of an Orange County intersection to wave placards and American flags.

Abortion foes cheered and carried flags at the Garden Grove intersection of Chapman Avenue and Harbor Boulevard in celebration of the high court’s decision to uphold a Pennsylvania law limiting abortion. But others expressed dismay that the justices had not outlawed abortion outright.

“I think the court’s decision stinks because it didn’t go far enough,” said anti-abortion demonstrator Ralph Buglione of Garden Grove, who represents the Pro-Life Political Action Committee of Orange County.

“A baby is an innocent person, and nobody ever talks about the baby,” he said. “They always talk about rights of the mother and put it on an academic level, but the baby is what we’re talking about.”

A few hundred feet away at the same intersection, abortion rights advocates, carrying signs saying “Keep Abortion Legal,” saw little in the high court’s decision that should cheer anti-abortion groups, because the justices did not strike down the 1973 precedent, Roe vs. Wade, which established abortion as a constitutional right.

“I don’t see how those opposed to abortion choice can claim victory,” said abortion rights demonstrator Beverly Wilcox of Anaheim, a chairwoman of the Orange County Pro-Choice Coalition.

Nonetheless, she called the decision disappointing because it was a “watering down” of the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision.

But while many abortion rights activists called for federal legislation to guarantee the right to choose an abortion, others predicted that its legality in California may soon be in question.

The state Supreme Court declared in 1981 that the right to privacy of the California Constitution gives broad protections to abortion rights, beyond those required by the federal high court.

Under that ruling, the state courts have consistently rebuffed attempts by the Legislature to place sharp limits on Medi-Cal funding for abortions.

Now, however, the once-liberal-dominated California court has been reshaped with a conservative majority that has yet to rule squarely on the abortion question. And anti-abortion forces are hoping that the court may yet open the way to restrictions on abortion.

“We think this is a totally different court,” said Janet B. Carroll, legislative director of the California Pro-Life Council. “Hopefully, these justices will find that the right to privacy was never intended to include the right to kill babies.”

Abortion-rights attorneys, on the other side, are banking on the court to stand by precedent and reject new limits. But they acknowledge that the current justices could take a different view of the state right to privacy than their liberal predecessors.

“Certainly as a theoretical matter, California courts are free to reinterpret the scope of the California Constitution,” said Margaret C. Crosby, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. “We are hopeful the court will respect precedent . . . but things can change.”

Judy Beckner Sloan, a professor at Southwestern School of Law in Los Angeles, pointed to Monday’s refusal to overturn Roe vs. Wade as a classic example of the traditional reluctance of courts to reverse an important precedent.

“One of the things we look to in our courts is to provide rock-solid ballast while all else is changing,” said Sloan.

The next major California Supreme Court ruling on abortion is likely to come in a case involving a challenge to a 1987 state law, never enforced, requiring minors to get consent from a parent or judge before obtaining an abortion. That requirement is similar to one in the Pennsylvania law upheld Monday by the federal high court.

A San Francisco Superior Court judge recently struck down the California parental-consent law as a violation of the state right to privacy. State Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren is appealing the ruling and the case could reach the state high court by next year.

On the legislative front, Assemblyman Phil Wyman (R-Bakersfield), co-sponsor of the parental-consent law, said Monday’s ruling could provide new impetus for additional restrictions on abortion similar to those in Pennsylvania.

Legislation is pending in Sacramento that would allow the state to gather statistics on the number of abortions performed in California (now estimated at 325,000 annually) and impose a 24-hour waiting period in which pregnant women would be given information about alternatives to abortion.

Wyman said those measures would be permissible under both the state and federal Constitutions. “How could providing more information to a woman interfere with her right to privacy?” he asked. “That would be in her best interest.”

Abortion-rights leaders, appearing at a news conference here, vowed to oppose any such new regulations. But they acknowledged that impending changes in the makeup of the Legislature--the result of reapportionment and term restrictions under Proposition 140--may make the task more difficult than it has been in the past.

After Monday’s decision was announced, abortion-rights groups condemned the court’s approval of Pennsylvania’s restrictions, saying the ruling all but dismantled Roe vs. Wade. “The court is chipping away at a woman’s fundamental right to choose,” said Belle Taylor-McGhee of Planned Parenthood Alameda/San Francisco. “The effect will be social chaos and conflict.”

Opponents of abortion assailed the court’s refusal to throw out Roe vs. Wade. “We were devastated by the decision,” said Susan Carpenter-McMillan of the Right to Life/Pro Family Media Coalition in Los Angeles. “We thought we had a majority (to reverse Roe v. Wade).”

In Sacramento, Gov. Pete Wilson, saying he was committed to the “right to choose,” said the ruling made state-law protections on abortion more important. “Fortunately, our state Constitution contains a guaranteed right to privacy which protects the fundamental reproductive rights of every woman in California,” the governor said in a statement.

Lungren welcomed the high court’s approval under the federal Constitution of Pennsylvania’s parental-consent requirement. “It is now clear that it is constitutional for a state to discourage abortion or encourage preference for life over abortion, but that a state cannot absolutely ban such procedures,” he said.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, praised the ruling. “Because the court upheld the provisions of Pennsylvania’s law, fewer women will be exploited, more children will live and more babies will be adopted,” he said.

U.S. Senate candidate Dianne Feinstein deplored the decision, labeling it a “pre-election political tango” over the abortion issue and a signal that the Supreme Court will eventually make it nearly impossible to obtain abortions. “With this decision, women should now know that the right to choose is under siege in America,” she said.

Her opponent, Republican Sen. John Seymour, also criticized the decision and reiterated his support for the federal Freedom of Choice Act, which would protect abortion rights. “By voting to uphold a list of restrictions and requirements, the Supreme Court has continued to chip away at a woman’s fundamental right of choice,” Seymour said.

At a press conference sponsored by Planned Parenthood in Santa Ana, Susan W. Bordner, public policy chairwoman of the American Assn. of University Women, declared: “Roe vs. Wade has been gutted, and only a shell remains. The Supreme Court has declared war on women’s reproductive rights.”

Added Margie Fites Seigle, executive director of Planned Parenthood/Orange & San Bernardino Counties: “The U.S. Supreme Court is no longer chipping away at Roe vs. Wade; it has used a wrecking ball to batter the foundation of that landmark decision.”