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Two news stories that we have been following this week include a federal appeal's court ruling on a Virginia abortion law and recently released tapes that reveal President Nixon's views on abortion.
Federal appeals court revives Virginia abortion law
Larry O'Dell
A sharply divided federal appeals court upheld Virginia's ban on a type of late-term abortion Wednesday, ruling that the statute does not unduly burden a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy by more conventional means.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 6-5 decision that the 2003 law also makes clear the type of procedure that is banned and adequately protects women's health. Abortion opponents call the prohibited procedure "partial-birth abortion," and doctors call it "intact dilation and extraction."
The decision reversed a 2-1 panel ruling in May 2008 that struck down the law, which is similar to a federal statute prohibiting a procedure in which the fetus is partially delivered and then destroyed.
On Nixon tapes, ambivalence over abortion, not Watergate
Charlie Savage
On Jan. 22, 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade, President Richard M. Nixon made no public statement. But the next day, newly released tapes reveal, he privately expressed ambivalence.
Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases — like interracial pregnancies, he said.
“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding, “Or a rape.”
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