Abortion: The Basic Issues Remain : From the highest court to pregnant teens, many questions are unresolved

If abortion is the issue that won’t go away, this week alone indicates why. Action by Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court reveal anew that this nation’s political and judicial leaders are still struggling over basic questions: Which women can exercise their right to choose an abortion--a right the court reaffirmed but also limited last year? Under what conditions can women do so? And how may those who strongly oppose the procedure voice their opposition?

On Thursday the House passed legislation that imposes federal criminal penalties upon those who use force or the threat of violence to bar access to family-planning clinics. This bill would fill a deep void created in January when the Supreme Court refused to read existing civil-rights laws broadly enough to protect women from violent extremists. More than 100 abortion clinics have been bombed or set on fire over the last decade and this year two doctorswere shot by anti-abortion extremists. Peaceful protest is one thing, but violence masking itself as free speech is intolerable. The House vote followed Senate passage of a similar bill earlier in the week.

But victory in Congress came hard on the heels of a tough ruling from the Supreme Court on Monday, to let stand Mississippi’s law requiring a pregnant teen-ager to obtain the consent of both parents or a judge before obtaining an abortion. Without comment or dissent, the court refused to hear an appeal from abortion-rights attorneys who said that the Mississippi law puts “an undue burden” on the constitutional rights of women under age 18. But trying to legislate family communication and then punishing those who cannot or will not comply is a difficult and ill-conceived state mission.

Mississippi now joins two other states--Massachusetts and North Dakota--that also enforce laws requiring teen-agers to get consent of both parents. But since notification laws in other states, including California, still face court tests, this issue, like many other abortion questions, is far from settled, either for the Supreme Court or for every teen-age girl who discovers she is pregnant when she may not want to be.