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In California, the Pro Life Council and its legislative allies are promoting laws that would require parental consent for minors seeking abortions; require women seeking abortions to sign a form saying they had seen an ultrasound image of the fetus they are carrying; increase regulation of abortion clinics; require fetuses to be anesthetized before they are aborted; and reduce Medi-Cal funding of abortion.
The council is also lobbying to require television stations and other media to air paid political advertisements featuring graphic depictions of abortion.
None of these measures is specifically prohibited by Roe or its successor Supreme Court decisions on abortion. Whether they are adopted could determine whether abortion rates drop even further than they have to date.
"I really believe that the Roe vs. Wade decision is on a collision course with modern medicine and America's conscience," Powell says. "Modern medicine is allowing us to hear and see a baby's heartbeat very early. People are listening to that heartbeat."
The Violence That Chills
Then there is the violence.
The Bay Area hasn't suffered any of the shootings, murders, firebombs, and arsons that have afflicted abortion providers in Florida, Massachusetts, Kansas, Vancouver, and elsewhere.
But it does have its Brother Martin, aka Ray Temple, who, according to pro-choice advocates, so far has limited his activities to throwing salt on abortion clinic escorts, taking a swing at an abortion clinic director, and helping another group of abortion activists tackle Dr. Smith.
"There was this protester kneeling in front of the door of the clinic, writing 'murder' or something on the concrete in front of the door. I came out and said I was making a citizen's arrest: 'I am making a citizen's arrest, and I am empowered by the law to do that,' " recalls Smith. "She was struggling to get away and Brother Martin -- Ray Temple; he wears a black cassock, rosaries, all that -- she was struggling to get away, and he jumped on me. Two other men came around the corner and jumped on me. I called the police, and Brother Martin was arrested, and the woman who I tried to arrest got away."
The recent, rapid escalation of violence at abortion clinics has chilled doctors, receptionists, security guards, and anyone else who works at the clinics. Dr. Smith and dozens of his colleagues are listed on a Web page titled Abortionists on Trial, which depicts blood dripping over a hit list of doctors and clinic workers, with instructions on how to look up their addresses.
Meanwhile, Smith says, many of his associates -- the doctors old enough to remember the days when hospital trauma wards regularly served patients suffering complications from botched illegal abortions -- are retiring. And few are taking their place. For medical students, it's not worth the fear, or the ostracism from the rest of medicine.
"We don't get any support. Anti-abortionists come harass our patients all the time. I don't see anyone come and picket against the harassers. Even though I do general gynecology, many women who might support a woman's right to choose, they wouldn't want to have their baby with me. They want to go to the nice squeaky-clean doctor down the hall," Smith says. "In the same way people say that they're not going to a doctor who performs abortions, they need women to say, 'I am going to Dr. Smith for ordinary gynecology care because he gives abortions.'
"But we get none of that."
While the battle over abortion appears to favor anti-abortion forces, nobody is declaring victory, or defeat, yet.
In a December article, the New York Times reported that the number of abortions performed had recently increased in a handful of states, though it offered no suggestions as to why, or whether those numbers represented a national trend.
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education issued guidelines in 1996 that encourage medical schools to include abortion techniques in their curriculums. It is not yet clear how much effect these guidelines will have, says Patricia Anderson, executive director of Medical Students for Choice.
The prospect of approval for drugs such as RU 486, which induces abortions, could make early term abortions much easier to obtain.
But these prospects don't cheer pro-choice women.
"I think that my generation of women -- we are the second generation of feminists -- I think we have really taken advantage of what our mothers have done. We are really complacent," says Jennifer Matthews, 29, a San Francisco professional who had difficulty obtaining an abortion last summer. "Our right to have an abortion is slowly eroding away.
