Anti-Abortion Groups Are Split on Legal Tactics

 

 A widening and emotional rift over legal tactics has split the anti-abortion movement, with its longtime leaders facing a Tea Party-like insurrection from many grass-roots activists who are impatient with the pace of change. 

For decades, established anti-abortion leaders like National Right to Life and Catholic bishops have pushed for gradually chipping away at the edges of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion, with state laws to impose limits on late-term abortions, to require women to view sonograms or to prohibit insurance coverage for the procedure.

But now many activists and evangelical Christian groups are pressing for an all-out legal assault on Roe. v. Wade in the hope — others call it a reckless dream — that the Supreme Court is ready to consider a radical change in the ruling.

The rift widened last month over a so-called personhood amendment in Mississippi that would have barred virtually all abortions by giving legal rights to embryos. It was voted down but is still being pursued in several states.

Now, in Ohio, a bill before the state legislature that would ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detectable, usually six to eight weeks into pregnancy, is the latest effort by activists to force a legal showdown. The so-called heartbeat bill is tearing apart the state’s powerful anti-abortion forces.

Ohio Right to Life, which has been the premier lobby, and the state Catholic conference have refused to support the measure, arguing that the court is not ready for such a radical step and that it could cause a legal setback. But the idea has stirred the passions of some traditional leaders, even winning the endorsement of Dr. John C. Willke of Cincinnati, the former president of National Right to Life and one of the founders of the modern anti-abortion movement.

“I was Mr. Incremental,” Dr. Willke, 87, said of his career promoting the more modest restrictions. “But after nearly 40 years of abortion on demand, it’s time to take a bold step forward.”

Dr. Willke, who in 1971 created what became Ohio Right to Life, called his onetime organization out of touch with the “unrestrained enthusiasm” that the heartbeat bill has unleashed and that he said is emerging in many other states.

Mark S. Gietzen, director of the Kansas Coalition for Life, called the bill “the most exciting thing that has happened in the pro-life movement since Roe v. Wade,” adding that a heartbeat bill modeled on Ohio’s would be introduced when the Kansas Legislature convenes in January.

Defenders of abortion rights, in turn, call banning abortions at the first sign of a heartbeat a patently unconstitutional proposal that is doomed to failure.

The refusal of Ohio Right to Life to get behind the heartbeat proposal has led to bitter dissent. In the last two weeks, six county chapters have angrily withdrawn from the organization including, on Thursday, the Cincinnati chapter, the state’s oldest and largest.

“Step-by-step measures haven’t stopped the killing,” said Linda J. Theis, president of Ohio ProLife Action, a new group that was formed in October to press for the heartbeat bill, and that has absorbed the breakaway chapters. “It’s hard to be against a bill that says that once a baby’s heart is beating, you shouldn’t take his life.”

The bill is awaiting action in the heavily Republican Senate. If it passes, which some expect to happen this winter, Gov. John R. Kasich, a conservative Republican, seems likely to sign it.

Officially, National Right to Life, the umbrella group for state chapters, has taken no position on the heartbeat bill or on the fracturing of the movement. The national spokesman, Derrick Jones, said, “This isn’t really something we want to get into.”

James Bopp Jr., a lawyer in Indiana who is general counsel to National Right to Life but did not speak for the organization, condemned both the personhood and the heartbeat proposals as futile and likely to backfire. But he played down the current split.

“There has always been a division between those who want to concentrate on what will make a difference, and those who are more interested in making a statement that makes them feel better,” he said.

The heartbeat bill, if not as sweeping as personhood, has a more visceral public appeal, its promoters argue, and avoids some of the pitfalls of the personhood proposal, posing no threat to contraception or critical medical care. In theory, the law would prevent a large majority of abortions, perhaps 80 to 90 percent, by Dr. Willke’s calculation. Doctors who perform abortions in violation would be subject to a felony charge, fines and loss of their medical license, but the women would not face charges. The bill would allow an abortion if a woman’s life or a major bodily function were in danger. Abortions for victims of rape or incest would not be allowed.

Google Chairman Gets a Chance to Make His Case in Europe

Joaquín Almunia, the E.U. competition commissioner, held face-to-face talks with Mr. Schmidt in January about the commission’s investigation into whether Google had abused a dominant position in online search and advertising. At that meeting, Mr. Almunia assured Mr. Schmidt that he would give the company a chance to offer a solution to the antitrust case without incurring a penalty.

But there have been no outward signs of such a settlement since then, and Mr. Almunia has played down the chances of such an outcome coming anytime soon.

“This is not a meeting to discuss in detail a case that is being investigated by my services,” Mr. Almunia said last week. “This is not a meeting to negotiate anything.”

Mr. Almunia did say he was “very keen to exchange views.”

Ostensibly, Mr. Schmidt is visiting Brussels to address the first Innovation Convention organized by the European Commission.

But he arrives as Google strives to win E.U. regulatory permission to buy Motorola Mobility, a major smartphone manufacturer, in a $12.5 billion deal announced in August. And, more significantly, Mr. Schmidt wants to resolve a broader antitrust investigation of its popular Internet search engine and its lucrative advertising business, which accounts for most of its $29 billion in annual revenue.

In the past, the commission has required the U.S. technology giants Microsoft and Intel to pay fines of more than €1 billion, or $1.34 billion, each for antitrust abuses, and Google will be seeking to avoid a similar fate. (The decision against Intel remains under appeal.)

“You don’t fly across the Atlantic and meet with Europe’s most powerful antitrust official without having something significant to discuss about your case,” said Tom McQuail, a partner in the Brussels office of the law firm Morrison & Foerster and a specialist in antitrust law, who does not represent any of the companies involved in the investigation.

Al Verney, a spokesman for Google, said that the meeting with Mr. Almunia was another opportunity “to discuss issues affecting our industry and explain how our business works.”

Part of that discussion is likely to focus on Google’s offer to acquire Motorola Mobility.

Google filed late last month for E.U. clearance to complete the deal, and by Jan. 10 Mr. Almunia must decide whether to clear the transaction or to take a few more months to review the deal for antitrust concerns. The U.S. Justice Department already has sent Google and Motorola Mobility a request for additional information, lengthening the review process there.

With its purchase of Motorola Mobility, Google is gaining a portfolio of patents that will give the company a formidable defense against infringement lawsuits. But the acquisition could also heighten antitrust concerns by further entrenching Google’s strength in the markets for mobile search and advertising.

Iran's armed forces have shot down an unmanned US spy plane that violated its eastern borders

ranian media reports said the drone - identified as a type RQ170 - suffered minimal damage and was now in the hands of the armed forces.

The Nato-led Isaf force in neighbouring Afghanistan says the US drone could be one that was lost over western Afghanistan last week.

Iran is locked in a dispute with the West over its nuclear programme.

The US and its allies believe the programme is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies the accusations, saying it is entirely peaceful.

'Sensitive mission'

"The UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] to which the Iranians are referring may be a US unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week. The operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status," Isaf said in a statement.

A US official has said Washington had no indication the drone in question had actually been shot down, Reuters reports.

Iran earlier said the country's military response to the airspace violation "will not be limited to Iran's borders any more", according to what one unnamed source told Iran's al-Alam TV.

The RQ170 Sentinel is a stealthy and highly capable unmanned aircraft. It is shaped like a large flying wing similar to the profile of the manned B2 stealth bomber.

Its shape and materials give it a low radar signature and it is clearly used for some of the most highly sensitive mission, says BBC defence and diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus.

First spotted at Kandahar air base in Afghanistan in 2007, an RQ170 Sentinel was used by the Americans to provide real-time intelligence over Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan, both before and during the raid by US special forces earlier this year.

Iran said in July it had shot down a drone over the holy city of Qom, near its Fordu nuclear site.

Last January, it said it downed two "Western spy drones" in the Gulf, but produced no evidence to support the report.

US Republican Herman Cain suspends campaign

US presidential hopeful Herman Cain has said he is suspending his campaign for the Republican nomination.

He blamed political and media pressure on his family in the wake of "false" allegations of sexual harassment and a 13-year-long extra-marital affair.

"I am not going to be silenced and I'm not going away," he told supporters in his home city of Atlanta, Georgia.

Next month, voters in Iowa will begin the process of choosing a Republican presidential candidate for 2012.

Mr Cain said the allegations against him had taken a toll on his family, but added: "I am at peace."

"I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distraction, the continued hurt caused on me and my family," he told supporters at what had been billed as the opening of his campaign headquarters.

"These false and unproved allegations continue to be spinned in the media and in the court of public opinion so as to create a cloud of doubt over me and this campaign and my family," he said.

He said he would endorse another candidate at a later date but gave no hint of where he would direct his supporters to go.