Court scraps restrictions on abortions

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court struck down today a set of state and local government regulations that could have made abortions more difficult to obtain, including a requirement that abortions for women more than three months pregnant be performed in hospitals. In separate decisions resolving controversies over abortion regulations in Virginia, Missouri and Ohio – the court struck down most of the regulations that had been challenged. } The justices said, however, that states and communities may require that abortions for women more than three months pregnant be performed in licensed abortion clinics or “outpatient hospitals.” In the Missouri case, the court upheld portions of a state law requiring the presence of a second physician during abortions for women in their last three months pregnancy, requiring minors to obtain the consent of a parent or a.. judge before an abortion and requiring a pathology report for every abortion performed. The court, building on its landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion, struck down as an unconstitutional infringement of women’s rights to privacy any regulations that would have required: • Women to receive abortions in a “fullservice hospital” after their pregnancy has reached its second trimester . • Doctors to tell women seeking abortions about possible alternatives and to tell their patients that the fetus is “a human life.” • Doctors to wait at least 24 hours after a woman signs an abortion consent form before performing the requested