WASHINGTON–Since its twin rulings 25 years ago in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the Supreme Court has revisited the abortion issue numerous times. Some examples:

n July 1, 1976: In Planned Parenthood v. Danforth and two similar cases, the court declares that because the right to an abortion is fundamental, neither a woman's husband nor a minor's parents may forbid an abortion.

n June 20, 1977: In Maher v. Roe and two other cases dealing with public funding of abortions, the court says in 6-3 decisions that its abortion rulings do not force states to pay for non-therapeutic abortions and do not require public hospitals to perform abortions.

n Jan. 9, 1979: Ruling 6-3 in Colautti v. Franklin, the court strikes down as too vague a Pennsylvania law that required doctors to use care and diligence in preserving the life of a fetus in an abortion.

n July 2, 1979: Voting 8-1 in Bellotti v. Baird, a Massachusetts case, the court strikes down a law requiring consent of a parent or a judge before an unmarried minor could get an abortion. But the justices split 4-4 on the reasons why the law should be overturned. Four claim the girl should be able to bypass her parents and go directly to a judge, while four others hold that even a judge should not have the power to forbid an abortion.

n June 30, 1980: The court, voting 5-4 in Harris v. McRae, upholds as constitutional the Hyde amendment, which prohibits federal funding of abortions.

n March 23, 1981: In H.L. v. Matheson, the court upholds by a 6-3 margin a Utah law requiring parental notification if an “immature, dependent minor” wants an abortion.

n June 15, 1983: Ruling in cases from Ohio, Missouri, and Virginia, the court strikes down several abortion regulations. These include requirements that all second-trimester abortions be performed in hospitals and that a 24-hour waiting period occur before an abortion.

n June 11, 1986: The court, voting 5-4, strikes down Pennsylvania abortion regulations, including requirements that doctors provide women with detailed information on abortion and its adverse effects, that a second doctor be present when a viable fetus is being aborted, and that doctors use the abortion method most likely to save the child. In the case, Thornburgh v. American College of WASHINGTON-Since its twin rulings 25 years ago in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the Supreme Court has revisited the abortion issue numerous times. Some examples:

n June 11, 1986: The court, voting 5-4, strikes down Pennsylvania abortion regulations, including requirements that doctors provide women with detailed information on abortion and its adverse effects, that a second doctor be present when a viable fetus is being aborted, and that doctors use the abortion method most likely to save the child. In the case, Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the court also reaffirms the “general principles” of Roe v. Wade.

n July 3, 1989: Ruling 5-4, the court upholds Missouri provisions declaring that life begins at conception; requiring physicians to test fetuses for viability; prohibiting public hospitals from performing abortions not required to save a woman's life; and banning use of public funds to encourage or counsel a woman to have an abortion not needed to save her life.

n June 29, 1992: In Planned Parenthood v. Casey the court refuses to overrule Roe v. Wade but rejects Roe's “rigid trimester framework” and-upholding most provisions of a Pennsylvania law-says a state may enact abortion regulations that do not pose an “undue burden” on the pregnant woman.

n June 30, 1994: In Madsen v. Aware Woman Center, the court by an 8-1 margin upholds as constitutional a buffer zone prohibiting protesters within 36 feet of an abortion clinic, but rejected broader restrictions on signs and activity farther away.

n Oct. 3 and 17, 1995: In cases from Virginia and California, the court upholds the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances law, which makes it a federal crime to block the entrance to a medical clinic, and a city ordinance that prohibited “targeted residential picketing,” such as at the homes of doctors who perform abortions.

n Dec. 4, 1995: The court orders the state of Colorado to continue to pay for abortions for indigent women who are victims of rape and incest, despite a state constitutional amendment prohibiting taxpayer funds for any abortions except those necessary to save the mother's life. Similar rulings were handed down in cases involving Nebraska, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania laws in 1996.

n June 16, 1997: The court upholds a Montana law requiring that only physicians be allowed to perform abortions.

HLI Unveils 1998 Public Education Campaign

FRONT ROYAL, VA-Human Life International announced its 1998 public education campaign at the 1998 March for Life on Jan. 22, which marked the 25th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. HLI will distribute thousands of signs and bumper stickers with the slogan: Bill, Do you Feel their Pain? Abortion Hurts Babies, Women, and Families.

HLI President Father Richard Welch CSsR said in a year when Congress will again attempt to override President Clinton's veto of the ban on the so-called “partial-birth abortion” procedure, it is time to challenge the man who told the American people he would make abortion “safe, legal, and rare.”

The partial-birth technique has been labeled by many as infanticide.

When he campaigned for president in 1992, Father Welch said, Clinton adopted the slogan, “I feel your pain,” to express his unity in the concerns of many Americans. HLI is asking him to stop and think of the pain a baby feels when scissors puncture his brain in a “partial-birth abortion,” while being dismembered in the womb, or burned by saline solutions in other forms of abortion.

We remind him of the heartache and pain of the mother who will never forget her child, the HLI president continued. We ask him to consider the pain of countless thousands of women, men, and children whose lives have been irrevocably damaged by their participation in abortion and today suffer from what may become the psychosis of the new millennium-post abortion syndrome.