The Nation - News from April 21, 1989

Abortion rights activists dumped about 200,000 letters at the Justice Department urging Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh to drop his attempt to have the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion overturned. The long legal struggle on abortion “has now become a political struggle,” American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Ira Glasser said. The department has asked the court to uphold a restrictive Missouri abortion law and to upend its 1973 decision. Dave Runkel, Thornburgh’s spokesman, said the department would accept the letters, but he doubted they would change the anti-abortion views of Thornburgh and President Bush.