Will O'Connor Swing?

When the Supreme Court last summer ruled that states could restrict abortions, all-out political warfare broke out. Both pro-life and pro-choice forces have since won victories: Michigan, Minnesota and Florida declined to enact new strictures on abortion; South Carolina began requiring parental or judicial consent for minors; Pennsylvania outlawed abortion for parents unhappy with the sex of the fetus. Last week abortion foes scored their greatest success yet when Idaho's senate passed the toughest abortion measure in any state.

Democratic Governor Cecil Andrus did not say whether he would sign the bill, but he has been strongly antiabortion. The bill is designed to give the Supreme Court an opportunity to strike down Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortions. The National Right to Life Committee helped draft the measure in an attempt to sway Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She has said she would accept restrictions on abortion provided they were not "unduly burdensome" on women.

Idaho's bill will give her a chance to disclose just what sort of burdens she has in mind. It provides that abortions be banned except in cases involving a rape that is reported within seven days; incest, if the girl is under 18 and reports it; severe fetal deformity; and threat to the mother's health. By those standards, about 95% of the 1,650 abortions that were performed in the state in 1988 would now be illegal. Though women who have abortions would not be sent to jail, their doctors could be liable for a $10,000 civil penalty for a first offense. Planned Parenthood's Linda King White blasted the legislators for their "reckless disregard for the lives of Idaho women" and vowed a court challenge.

Idaho's politicians were not the only ones to tussle with abortion last week. The U.S. territory of Guam outlawed all abortions except to save the life of the mother, but a federal judge temporarily blocked the measure. In Maryland, after an eight-day filibuster, the state Senate passed two bills -- one allowing abortion, the other severely restricting it -- and encouraged the state's voters to decide in a referendum next fall. "That gives politicians license to say they're pro-choice to one person and antiabortion to the next," charges delegate Patricia Sher. It would have been a politician's dream come true, but a House of Delegates committee voted down the measure at week's end.