Reaction here predictably split on rulings

Reaction in Arizona to today’s U.S. Supreme Court rulings on abortion was predictable, with opponents comforted somewhat by Justice Sandra O’Connor’s votes. “No question it is a bad day for those who are opposed to abortion,” said a despondent Rep. Jim Skelly, R-Scottsdale, one o~ the Arizona Legislature’s most outspoken rightto-life advocates. “The court has made it more difficult to take even limited steps to protect the lives of the unborn,” he said. Skelly described as “disgraceful” the high court’s vote to strike down the so-called “informed consent” provision of a 1978 Akron, Ohio, ordinance requiring a physician to tell a woman seeking an abortion “the unborn child is a human life from the moment of conception” and give her an anatomical description of the fetus in her womb. Pro-choice supporters, who had not seen the texts of the decisions, were heartened by the rulings. “It sounds as if the Supreme Court is affirming its 1973 decision,” said Gloria Feldt, executive director of Central and Northern Arizona Planned Parenthood. “They have affirmed that the decision about an abortion is one of a woman’s right to privacy, between a woman and her physician.” Feldt said the decision recognizes that abortion is more a “personal decision” than one involving the public interest. And she said that most of the provisions struck down in today’s rulings had been proposed by Skelly and others in anti – abortion bills offered in recent legislative sessions. Abortion foes were heartened