Changes in high court spur anti-abortion bills
By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 5, 2006

The rising tide of proposed abortion bans by state legislatures is being propelled by changes at the Supreme Court and the chance that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion, could be overturned in the next few years.

South Dakota state Rep. Roger W. Hunt, a Republican who sponsored a bill that passed the legislature last week banning nearly all abortions in the state, said the addition of two new conservative Supreme Court justices, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., was one of several factors he considered in pushing his bill at this time.

"Justice John Paul Stevens -- a liberal -- will celebrate his 86th birthday in April, so he is quite likely to retire in the next two to three years" and there will be another vacancy on the high court for President Bush to fill, Mr. Hunt said. Story