Focus on women gives hope to U.S. abortion foes
By Robin Toner
Published: May 21, 2007

WASHINGTON: For many years, the political struggle over abortion in the United States was often framed as a starkly binary choice: the interest of the woman, advocated by supporters of abortion rights, versus the interest of the fetus, advocated by abortion opponents.

But a Supreme Court decision last month that upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act marked a milestone for a different argument advanced by anti-abortion activists, one they are increasingly making in state legislatures around the country.

They argue that abortion, as a rule, is not in the best interest of the woman; that women are often misled or ill-informed about its risks to their own physical or emotional health; and that the interests of the pregnant woman and the fetus are, in fact, the same.

It is an argument that has been building for a decade or more, advanced by groups like the conservative Justice Foundation, the National Right to Life Committee and Feminists for Life. "We think of ourselves as very pro-woman," said Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee. "We believe that when you help the woman, you help the baby." the rest