In Abortion Fight, Little-Known Group Has Guiding Hand
Americans United Chips Away In Legislatures, Courts; Coaching New Hampshire
Inspired by NAACP Playbook
By JEANNE CUMMINGS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 30, 2005; Page A1
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But behind the scenes is a little-known Chicago-based organization called Americans United for Life, which for some 30 years has been guiding the effort to chip away at Roe v. Wade. A self-described "nonprofit, public-interest bioethics law firm," Americans United crafted the language used as a model for the 2003 New Hampshire law. Clarke Forsythe, a top lawyer with the group, earlier this month flew to Concord to help Ms. Ayotte practice the arguments she'll make before the justices.
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The New Hampshire case is just the latest step in Americans United's strategy to ultimately persuade the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, the landmark 1973 ruling establishing a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. It's a plan first outlined by the group in a 1987 book, titled "Abortion and the Constitution: Reversing Roe v. Wade Through the Courts," that still serves as a legal blueprint for the antiabortion movement. The group takes its inspiration from another long, gradual and ultimately successful effort to bring a fundamental change to American society through the courts: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's drive to overturn the Supreme Court's "separate but equal" doctrine that underpinned segregation.
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As of 2004, more than 30 states had passed parental-notification laws similar to New Hampshire's, modeled on boilerplate language from Americans United. More than 20 states have enacted separate "informed consent" laws advocated by Americans United that require doctors to tell patients of health risks from abortion. Americans United also backed passage of a Virginia ban on a late-term abortion procedure. A challenge to that law and another involving a similar 2003 federal law, could be on the Supreme Court docket as early as next year.
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But a major factor shaping the questions that reach the court will be Americans United's strategy in navigating cases through the system to that level. "You don't get a case to the Supreme Court by putting it in a brown paper wrapper and putting it on the Supreme Court steps," says Mr. Forsythe. Now 47, he joined Americans United fresh out of law school and has been helping steer the anti-Roe cases through the legal system for the past 20 years. He's been Americans United's executive director, president and is now heading a new bioethics legal project.
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