Medicine: Abortion Reform (Contd.)

Led by Colorado early in 1967, ten states have moderately liberalized their century-old abortion laws. Even so, the new laws have hardly made an appreciable dent in the number of illegal abortions, estimated to be as high as 1,500,000 annually. Dissatisfied with what they regard as tokenism, abortion reformers have since mounted campaigns in several states to abolish all penalties for abortions, provided they are performed by licensed physicians in approved hospitals. Their first success came in Hawaii (TIME, March 9), followed by another in Maryland, where the legislature has sent Governor Marvin Mandel a bill similar to the one passed in Hawaii.

Last week New York's legislature took essentially the same course. First, the Senate passed a comparable bill. Then the Assembly, in a cliffhanger session, approved the bill by the margin of a single vote out of 150, adding one restriction: after 24 weeks of pregnancy (when the fetus may have be come viable) an abortion can be performed only to save the mother's life. The Senate quickly accepted that sensible change, and Governor Nelson Rockefeller said that he would sign the bill.