Forty million abortions is way too many

Senate Panel Girds for Abortion Fight:

"Senate Panel Girds for Abortion Fight
Amid the possibility of a Supreme Court vacancy, witnesses, including 'Roe,' are summoned.

By Johanna Neuman, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — 'Jane Roe,' the plaintiff in the landmark Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision, has told the story many times: As a single mother struggling with emotional problems and alcohol and drug abuse, she agreed to play a historic role in the case that legalized abortion 32 years ago. Then, following her conversion to Christianity in 1995, she began to speak out against abortion.

But when Roe, whose real name is Norma McCorvey, repeated her story Thursday before members of a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the event was fraught with political symbolism.

In a preview of the arguments likely to be debated when the Senate takes up a Supreme Court nominee, Brownback led McCorvey and other witnesses through questions about when life begins and whether the justices erred in holding that abortion was protected by a woman's right to privacy.

"Roe was a mistake — a very, very costly one," said Brownback. "Forty million abortions is way too many."

In addition to McCorvey, Brownback summoned a panel of legal experts — two abortion opponents, two advocates of abortion rights — to discuss his contention that legal scholars are beginning to coalesce around a consensus that the legal underpinning of the Roe vs. Wade decision, the constitutional right to privacy, was flawed.

In the view of conservatives, the Roe decision not only legalized abortion but also infected much of the federal court system with judicial activism."

Pray that our judicial system can right the wrong of legalizing abortion.