ABA Reverses Itself, Backs Abortion Rights

After clashing over one of the most divisive issues it has faced, the governing body of the American Bar Assn. approved a resolution Tuesday supporting the right of a woman to choose abortion.

Reversing itself for the second time in 2 1/2 years, the organization’s House of Delegates approved the measure 276 to 168 after a prolonged and emotional debate.

“There is no issue of more importance to the women of America,” said Alice Richmond, a Boston lawyer who co-sponsored the resolution. “It is time to stand up and be counted for choice.”

In practical terms, the ABA’s vote will mean that the organization of lawyers can lobby Congress or join in petitioning the U. S. Supreme Court to promote the abortion rights viewpoint.

Talbot D’Alemberte, the group’s president, said the action was a reflection of the importance of abortion rights to the steadily increasing number of attorneys who are women.

“The vast, vast majority of women and women lawyers see this as a liberty issue,” he said. “If you have that belief, then this is a giant step forward. It keeps us in contact with the future.”

The ABA’s internal controversy comes at a time when the issue of abortion figures prominently in the campaign for the presidency, with many abortion rights advocates lining up behind Democrat Bill Clinton, and with President George Bush under pressure from some Republicans to soften his anti-abortion stance.

At the same time, anti-abortion activists are pressing for a hard-line position to be included in the Republican platform at the party’s convention next week.

Sponsors of the ABA measure, however, said they had no campaign motivation in bringing the issue before the national organization of attorneys.

The abortion resolution adopted by the ABA says that the organization “opposes state or federal legislation which restricts the right of a woman to choose to terminate a pregnancy.”

Opponents of the measure argued that the ABA should remain neutral, because so many of its members have strong moral and religious beliefs against abortion.

Robert Meserve, an ABA past president, said he is personally in favor of abortion rights but does not believe the ABA should take a position on an issue that is so divisive in society. “Let it be worked out somewhere other than this organization,” he said.

John Curtin, another ABA past president, said he is opposed to abortion and urged the House of Delegates to defeat the abortion rights measure. “We take the extreme position in this resolution,” Curtin said. “Is this the true role of a helping profession?”

Opponents sought to sidetrack the abortion rights measure by submitting it to a mail referendum of all 380,000 ABA members. “We have to resolve this once and for all,” said Harry Hathaway, a former president of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. who argued in favor of the referendum. But the proposal for a membership vote was rejected by the delegates.

Two and a half years ago, the ABA adopted a similar abortion rights stance that raised a firestorm of protest within the group. About 1,500 attorneys quit in protest and the decision was rescinded at the ABA’s 1990 convention.

This time, abortion rights advocates brought the issue back before the ABA’s national convention in San Francisco with the backdrop of the recent U. S. Supreme Court decision weakening the abortion protections of Roe vs. Wade.

“We can’t stand mute in the face of the dispute that is going on around us,” Charlie Brower, a Washington, D.C., lawyer, told his fellow delegates.

The debate also reflected the desire of some members for a more activist organization. Several recalled that the association failed to take a stand in favor of civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s.

“(We should) preserve the organization for what?” asked Marna Tucker, another Washington attorney. “So we can tinker with the IRS code for years to come?”

The ABA reversed another position Tuesday and voted to allow the National Lesbian and Gay Law Assn. to become an affiliated group. The House of Delegates had narrowly defeated the gay organization’s application last year.

This year, the House of Delegates voted 318 to 123 to admit the group after lawyer Bill Whitehurst, a former president of the Texas State Bar Assn., urged the governing panel “to right a wrong that must not be repeated.”