Monday, January 23, 2006

Marchers' renewed hope

BY CAROL EISENBERG
STAFF WRITER

January 22, 2006

Year in and year out, Marie Mawn has risen at 3 a.m. to catch the bus from St. Joseph's parish in Ronkonkoma for the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C.

Back in the early years, she would bundle up her five children for the grueling 11-hour round trip to protest the Supreme Court's decision legalizing abortion. On tomorrow's trip, she will take along her 10-year-old grandson.

But this year feels different to the seasoned soldier in the anti-abortion movement: For the first time in 33 years, Mawn has a sense that historic change is at hand - the beginning of the end of the 1973 court decision that made a woman's right to abortion the law of the land.

"I have a sense of optimism that we are at a turning point as a result of the recent changes on the Supreme Court," said the 68-year-old Catholic activist whose late husband helped organize the national day of prayer, protest and lobbying.

Supporters of abortion rights also are mobilizing to mark today's anniversary of Roe v. Wade with a communications blitz to try to stop this week's probable Senate confirmation vote of Samuel Alito, who is widely seen as hostile to abortion rights. The mood on their side is one of dread since if confirmed, Alito would bring to four the number of judges likely to vote to overturn Roe.

"I believe that the confirmation of Sam Alito to the Supreme Court is dangerous for the future health and welfare of women in this country," said JoAnn D. Smith, interim president of Planned Parenthood of Nassau County. "This is an appointment for life, which means it will probably be a generation or more who will have to live by his decisions."

Long Island has long been a hotbed of both anti-abortion and abortion rights activism, incubating national leaders on both sides of the issue - from Bill Baird, who opened one of the nation's first abortion clinics in Hempstead in 1970, to Ellen McCormack, the Merrick housewife who ran on an anti-abortion platform for president in 1976 and later became chairwoman of the state Right to Life Party.

Though opinion polls show residents expressing strong support for abortion rights, Nassau and Suffolk also have a highly vocal and organized protest community: The Diocese of Rockville Centre is sending more buses per parish to the march than any of its neighbors - 29 buses from Nassau and Suffolk, compared with 14 from the Diocese of Brooklyn, which includes Queens, and 35 from the 10-county Archdiocese of New York.

And in interviews, some of the estimated 2,000 local participants said they feel they finally have a shot at victory. While most don't see abortion disappearing anytime soon - even if Roe is overturned, they say, many states are likely to continue to permit it - there is a sense that a seismic shift is under way.

"With two more guys on the court who might review Roe and put it back where it belongs, we're seeing a light at the end of the tunnel," said John Lydon, 79, a retired New York City cop from Bellerose, referring to Chief Justice John Roberts and Alito.

Opponents don't argue that in recent years, the base of the anti-abortion community has grown to include evangelical Christians. Or that state legislatures have been chipping away at Roe.

"This is the first year I'm going," said Julie Woodley, 48, of Setauket, wife of an evangelical pastor and a counselor specializing in what she describes as post-abortion trauma. A mother of four who said she had two abortions while young, Woodley said her perspective changed "when I met God and began to see the truth of what I had done."

But Smith of Planned Parenthood insists that the anti-abortion community continues to be a minority. "This country will take to the streets if Roe is overturned," she said.

Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.

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