United States divided on abortion

On Jan. 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision on abortion rights, siding with appellant Jane Roe rather than Henry Wade, the district attorney for Texas’ Dallas County.In doing so, the nation’s highest court determined that abortions are permissible for any reason a woman chooses, up until the point where the fetus becomes viable, the latter term defined as the moment the fetus is potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid.During the past 35 years, the ruling has been challenged and in some instances its provisions weakened by anti-abortion groups. The issue of abortion has remained a hot button politically and, for some, religiously and morally.Opposing sides have waged media wars that reshape national politics and divide the nation. In recent years, those in support of the court decision became identified as pro-choice, while those opposed were labeled pro-life. The result has been a battleground where semantics often lead to confusion.Hoping to dispel some of that confusion, the Associated Press uses the terms anti-abortion and abortion rights when defining the two camps.Meanwhile, President George Bush in 2003 signed into law the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which some abortion-rights supporters fear will become a first step toward overturning Roe v. Wade.Last April, the newly-configured U.S. Supreme Court rejected a legal challenge to the ban, allowing it to go into effect for the first time since it was signed by the President.Other challenges to Roe v. Wade have sprung up, often through citizen petitions like the one in Kansas against Planned Parenthood of Overland Park and abortion provider George Tiller of Wichita. South Dakota elected state officials made it clear they don’t support Roe v. Wade. Further, a new national study released by the Guttmacher Institute shows abortions have dropped to their lowest level since 1974.Abortion is a common experience, and one in three American women will have the procedure by the time she reaches age 45, according to Guttmacher. Of those women, 57 percent are in their 20s, while 60 percent have one or more children, and 86 percent are unmarried.As of 2005, no racial or ethnic group claimed a majority among women obtaining an abortion: 41 percent are white non-Hispanic, 32 are black non-Hispanic, 20 percent are Hispanic, and 7 percent are from other backgrounds, according to Guttmacher.”Abortion is one of the safest surgical procedures for women in the U.S. Less than one percent of women obtaining an abortion experience a complication, and the risk of death associated with abortion is about one-tenth that associated with childbirth,” the institute reported.In 2005, 6.3 million of the 62 million American women of reproductive age (15-44) became pregnant. Of these pregnancies, 66 percent resulted in live births and 19 percent in abortions. The remaining 15 percent ended in miscarriage.In Massachusetts, 122,200 of the 1,370,797 women of reproductive age became pregnant in 2005. Of these pregnancies, 63 percent resulted in live births and 22 percent in induced abortions.During the same year, 1.2 million American women obtained abortions, producing a rate of 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age. The rate declined 9 percent from 2000, when the abortion rate was 21.3 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15-44, according to the Guttmacher study.In 2005, 27,270 women obtained abortions in Massachusetts, producing a rate of 19.9 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age, a rate on par with the national average.Some of these women were from other states, while some Massachusetts residents had abortions in other states, so this rate may not reflect the abortion rate of state residents, the researchers noted. The rate declined 7 percent since 2000, when it was 21.4 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15-44. Abortions in Massachusetts represent 2.3 of all abortions in the U.S.Abortion providers often have been targets of an