UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, April 30, 1996
7A
Supreme Court refuses to revive abortion law
Parental consent in South Dakota declared invalid
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — As three justices fumed over what was called a stealthful abortion agenda, the Supreme Court refused yesterday to revive a South Dakota law that required young girls to notify a parent before ending a pregnancy.
The state law had been invalidated because it did not allow most girls to avoid telling a parent by getting a judge's permission instead. And the court voted 6-3 to leave those rulings intact.
The action was yet another signal that the court, which in 1992 reaffirmed its landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, is not eager to plunge again into that divisive debate. The votes of four justices are needed to grant such review.
Sharp disagreement resurfaced yesterday as Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia exchanged statements accompanying the court's rejection of South Dakota's appeal.
At issue was the standard of review judges should use in deciding whether an abortion law is constitutional before it has been enforced.
"We are pleased that the best interests of South Dakota minors
will be protected. "
Colleen Connell American Civil Liberties Union
it has been enforced. Writing for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Justice Clarence Thomas and himself, Scalia said the issue virtually cries out for our review because of confusion in lower courts.
"Today's denial serves only one rational purpose: It makes our abortion ad hoc nullification machine as stealthful as possible," he said.
But Stevens said any asserted confusion was based on rigid, unwise and properly ignored language contained in an opinion Rehquist previously had written for the court.
A ruling on parental-notice laws could have had substantial practical impact. Of the more than one million legal abortions performed annually in the United States since 1973,
"We are pleased that the best interests of South Dakota minors will be protected," said Colleen Connell of the American Civil Liberties Union.
about 12 percent — some 100,000 a year — are for minors.
But South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow called the court's action crazy.
He said state law now requires girls to get a parent's permission before getting their ears pierced but not before getting an abortion.
"That makes no sense to me at all," he said.
And a state legislator who led the fight for the invalidated 1993 law promised to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new parental-notice law.
Two issues loomed in the South Dakota case. One was whether a state can ban abortions for unmarried girls under 18 — who are not economically independent — unless a parent is notified.
South Dakota was the only state in the union with a one-parent notification law that limited its judicial-bypass option to cases in which a girl showed she had been abused or neglected.
The court has not said definitively whether an abortion law requiring notification of just one parent needs a judicial bypass option to be constitutional.
The 1993 South Dakota law, challenged by Planned Parenthood and a Sioux Falls abortion clinic, was struck down before it took effect.
New Mexico blaze burns 14,500 acres of forest in five days
Fire could rage another week
The Associated Press
BANDELIER NATIONAL MONUMENT, N.M. — Firefighters burned brush in the path of a forest fire yesterday, hoping to halt its advance on the Los Alamos, N.M., nuclear weapons laboratory and ancient Indian ruins.
The wind-whipped fire has burned 14,500 acres in five days in northern New Mexico, moving over parched, rugged hills and canyons to within six miles of Los Alamos National Laboratory, which was open as usual.
"There's a lot of concern among some people about nuclear materials being lofted into the air," said representative John Gustafson. "Let me assure you there's no danger. Those materials are stored safely in our facilities."
As a precaution, emergency crews removed explosives from one building in the line of fire. Explosives in a second building are stored in fireproof bunkers surrounded by earthen berms.
Trace amounts of tritium, a radioactive isotope used to increase the power of nuclear
weapons, are housed in a third fireproof building. Gustafson said the radioactivity was not great enough to pose a health hazard even if it escaped.
The fire was burning at an elevation of 8,000 to 8,500 feet in the Santa Fe National Forest and Bandelier National Monument, northwest of Santa Fe, N.M.
As of yesterday, the blaze had not reached the ancient cliff dwellings of the Anasazi Indians. The fire was burning in a canyon adjacent to the tourist site, which was closed to visitors as a precaution.
Crews set a fire ahead of the blaze yesterday, igniting leaves, branches and stumps that the flames feed on. Airplanes dropped fire retardant, and more than 800 firefighters fought the blaze on the ground.
U. S. Forest Service officials said they didn't expect to completely contain the fire for another week.
Authorities believe the fire started from an illegal campfire built by Gregory Steele, 27, of Taos, N.M., and Farid Touchi, 23, of Germany. The men were arrested Saturday after turning themselves in.
They were arraigned on charges including leaving a fire unattended and could get up to six months in prison and a $25,000 fine.
THE NEWS in brief
The Associated Press
Topeka man kills girlfriend during road trip
NEW YORK — The argument in the car got bloody somewhere in Kansas. police say.
But Angel Rivera kept driving and driving.
About 1,200 miles and two days
later, he pulled up to a New York City police station.
Next to him in the front seat was the corpse of his girlfriend, who had been stabbed to death.
Rivera, 33, of Topeka, was arrested on charges死 after turning
himself in to police Sunday in the Bronx.
Rivera stabbed the woman six times and left her to die in the passenger seat, discarding the knife during the drive east, Patterson said.
Rivera told authorities he knifed 30-year-old Tricole Pudy while the two were arguing Friday near Toneka, police said.
losing his job, and her about to lose her job," said Detective Mark Patterson.
"It had something to do about him
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