History > 2007 > USA > Women (I)

Through the '90s and into the new century,

Ms. Smith was famous for being famous,

a pop-culture punchline because of her up-and-down weight,

her Marilyn Monroe looks, her exaggerated curves,

her little-girl voice, her ditzy-blonde persona,

and her over-the-top revealing outfits.

Above, she appeared at a news conference on August 13, 1998.

Photograph: Fred Prouse/Reuters

Anna Nicole Smith Is Found Dead in Florida        NYT        9.2.2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/us/09smith.html

Man arrested for bomb

at Texas abortion clinic

Fri Apr 27, 2007
8:23PM EDT
Reuters

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A 27-year-old Austin man was arrested on Friday and charged with placing an unexploded bomb containing some 2,000 nails outside an abortion clinic in the state's capital.

The explosive device also included a propane tank and a mechanism "akin to a rocket," Austin Police Commander David Carter said.

The device was discovered on Wednesday in the parking lot of the Austin Women's Health Center, police said.

The Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force -- made up of federal, state and local law enforcement authorities -- arrested Paul Ross Evans, who authorities said was on parole for an unspecified crime.

Evans was charged with violating federal laws banning the manufacture of explosives and interfering with access to an abortion clinic. He appeared before a federal magistrate, and was being held without bail.

No further arrests were anticipated in the case. "The threat is over," Carter said.

A robot was used to disarm the bomb after the unmarked clinic building and an apartment complex were evacuated, police said on Thursday.

This was the first bombing attempt this year at an abortion clinic, according to the National Abortion Federation, which tracks violence against abortion providers.

Four incidents of attempted bombing or arson were reported in 2006, the NAF said. More than 40 abortion clinic bombings have occurred since 1977, with the last reported in 2001.

Man arrested for bomb at Texas abortion clinic, R, 27.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2719258620070428

Abortion Ruling Emboldens Opponents

April 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:17 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court's endorsement of the first federal curbs on an abortion procedure in a generation suggests that even with Democrats in control of Congress, efforts to preserve abortion rights may be losing ground.

Both sides in the volatile abortion debate said they now expect a spate of efforts in several states to place further limits on abortion -- and that a court reshaped by President Bush's conservative picks will be more willing to uphold them.

Meanwhile, abortion rights champions expressed little hope that efforts to enshrine in federal law that a woman has a right to choose could succeed in Congress.

Wednesday's ruling -- a turning point in a debate that has engaged the nation for more than three decades -- confirmed the worst fears of abortion rights supporters and the highest hopes of abortion opponents: that Bush's push to leave his stamp on the court could open the way for a host of new abortion restrictions.

The outlawed procedure, generally used to end pregnancies in the second and third trimester, involves partially removing the fetus intact from a woman's uterus, then crushing or cutting its skull to complete the abortion. Opponents of the procedure call it partial-birth abortion.

By validating a ban on such abortions, ''the court has taken the first major step back'' toward the days when abortion was illegal, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

''What it says to me is that this court is willing to disregard prior precedent, and they are waiting for an opportunity to overturn Roe,'' Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, said in an interview, referring to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that said women have a right to choose abortions.

The 5-4 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

Gandy called Wednesday's decision the court's most political since Bush v. Gore, the 2000 ruling that handed Bush the presidency.

Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee, an anti-abortion group, said the ruling ''provides further encouragement'' to state and federal lawmakers to enact better ''informed consent'' laws, such as those requiring that women be offered an opportunity to see ultrasounds or hear about a fetus' ability to feel pain before they have an abortion.

Such legislation is pending in several state legislatures and has been introduced Congress.

''We have a court now that has correctly yielded to the Congress and the legislative branch,'' said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. ''This will bolster state legislators who are reflecting the views of their constituents on abortion.''

Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, a leading sponsor of the ban, said the court's ruling could return abortion-rights questions to the states, where he said they belong.

''It forced many people to consider what actually occurs when an abortion is carried out,'' Chabot said. ''It's not a reach for one to think that the child is just as much a human being earlier in the process, and that those other forms of abortion are pretty awful too.''

Abortion rights champions expressed alarm at that prospect.

''The court has given anti-choice state lawmakers the green light to open the flood gates and launch additional attacks on safe, legal abortion, without any regard for women's health,'' said Nancy Keenan, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said they would reintroduce a measure to put a woman's right to have an abortion in federal law. Feinstein, however, acknowledged that abortion rights supporters do not have the votes to prevail in Congress.

''We've been losing fight after fight after fight,'' she said, adding that people have become complacent about protecting abortion rights because they have existed for more than a generation.

The upholding of the ban was the culmination of a dozen years of efforts by abortion opponents to outlaw a procedure that public opinion polls have shown most Americans believe should be illegal.

The public is nearly evenly split on abortion in general, polls show, but the vast majority of Americans back some restrictions on it. Surveys have found that more than 60 percent favor banning the procedure outlawed in Wednesday's ruling. That makes the ban an exceedingly difficult political proposition even for Democrats who are strong champions of abortion rights.

''It's a Democratic Congress, but it's not a pro-choice Congress,'' NOW's Gandy said, adding that it was unlikely that lawmakers would step in to try to reverse the ban or take other action to beat back additional abortion curbs.

Instead, liberal activists said the decision demonstrated the importance of putting Democrats in the White House and in Congress, where they would be positioned to name and confirm Supreme Court justices who support abortion rights.

''The reaction to this decision could help educate many Americans who, quite frankly, have grown complacent about a constitutional right to reproductive health,'' said Ralph Neas of People for the American Way.

The cases are Gonzales v. Carhart, 05-380, and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, 05-1382.

    Abortion Ruling Emboldens Opponents, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Abortion-What-Next.html

Court Ruling Catapults Abortion Back Into ’08 Race

April 19, 2007
The New York Times
By ROBIN TONER

WASHINGTON, April 18 — Both sides in the abortion struggle predicted that the Supreme Court’s decision on Wednesday would escalate the drive for new abortion restrictions in state legislatures and push the issue of abortion rights — and the Supreme Court — squarely into the 2008 presidential election.

The decision was a major victory for social conservatives, a validation of their decade-long strategy of pushing for step-by-step restrictions on abortion while working to change the composition of the Supreme Court.

“This decision is a powerful and timely reminder of the enormous significance of presidential elections and their pivotal impact on the makeup of the Supreme Court,” said Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.

“Thank God for President Bush,” Mr. Land said, “and thank God for Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito.”

Clarke D. Forsythe, president of Americans United for Life, said the decision would restore power to the states and make it easier to enact “common-sense regulations” on abortion. The “partial-birth” ban, aimed at a type of abortion known medically as intact dilation and extraction, was the product of years of effort by abortion opponents in states and on Capitol Hill. The legislation was twice vetoed by President Bill Clinton and, in a previous version, ruled unconstitutional by a different makeup of the Supreme Court.

Abortion rights advocates said they were shaken by the 5-to-4 ruling upholding the ban and asserted that the ruling cut to the heart of the protections of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision recognizing a constitutional right to abortion. They said it also underscored the stakes of the 2008 presidential election, arguing that the next president will almost certainly appoint a justice who could shift the balance of the court on Roe itself.

Abortion rights supporters clearly hoped for a replay of the abortion politics of the late 1980s, when the majority for Roe was also considered uncertain, mobilizing advocates into a more potent political force.

“Until this decision, I think a lot of people were skeptical about whether Roe could be overturned,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “But there clearly is no longer a presumption that women’s health will be protected by the courts.”

The reaction from the presidential candidates was quick and along party lines, and largely seemed aimed at their party’s base, which frames primary elections.

Republicans, who have worked hard to court conservatives opposed to abortion, hailed the decision as a long overdue stand against an “unacceptable and unjustifiable practice,” as Senator John McCain of Arizona, put it. “It also clearly speaks to the importance of nominating and confirming strict constructionist judges who interpret the law as it is written, and do not usurp the authority of Congress and state legislatures,” he added.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the Republican former mayor of New York and a longtime supporter of abortion rights, said the court “reached the correct conclusion."

Democrats denounced the decision as an “alarming” retreat from years of Supreme Court precedent safeguarding women’s health, in the words of Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois.

“I strongly disagree with today’s Supreme Court ruling, which dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women,” Mr. Obama added.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, also described the decision as “a dramatic departure from four decades of Supreme Court rulings that upheld a woman’s right to choose and recognized the importance of women’s health.”

The reaction among independent and moderate voters will be closely watched.

Until now, even some elected officials who supported abortion rights were uncomfortable dealing with the procedure singled out in the 2003 law. . Abortion opponents considered the legislation a valuable teaching tool to highlight what they asserted was the extraordinary reach of the Roe decision. On final passage in the Senate in 2003, 17 Democrats joined with 47 Republicans to support the ban.

But some Democrats said this new court decision could change the political landscape, just as the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case did, by striking moderates as an unwarranted government intrusion into medical decisions.

On Capitol Hill, Democratic abortion rights leaders vowed to push for legislation that would codify the Roe decision, a long-sought goal of liberals. But activists on both sides said that was an uphill battle.

Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California and a staunch supporter of abortion rights, said she planned to reintroduce that legislation. But she acknowledged, “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

    Court Ruling Catapults Abortion Back Into ’08 Race, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/politics/19react.html?hp

Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Abortion Procedure

April 18, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:00 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act ''have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases,'' Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The administration had defended the law as drawing a bright line between abortion and infanticide.

Reacting to the ruling, Bush said that it affirms the progress his administration has made to uphold the ''sanctity of life.''

''I am pleased that the Supreme Court has upheld a law that prohibits the abhorrent procedure of partial birth abortion,'' he said. ''Today's decision affirms that the Constitution does not stand in the way of the people's representatives enacting laws reflecting the compassion and humanity of America.''

The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.

It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how -- not whether -- to perform an abortion.

Abortion rights groups as well as the leading association of obstetricians and gynecologists have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, although government lawyers and others who favor the ban said there are alternate, more widely used procedures that remain legal.

The outcome is likely to spur efforts at the state level to place more restrictions on abortions.

''I applaud the Court for its ruling today, and my hope is that it sets the stage for further progress in the fight to ensure our nation's laws respect the sanctity of unborn human life,'' said Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, Republican leader in the House of Representatives.

Said Eve Gartner of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: ''This ruling flies in the face of 30 years of Supreme Court precedent and the best interest of women's health and safety. ... This ruling tells women that politicians, not doctors, will make their health care decisions for them.'' She had argued that point before the justices.

More than 1 million abortions are performed in the United States each year, according to recent statistics. Nearly 90 percent of those occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and are not affected by Wednesday's ruling.

Six federal courts have said the law that was in focus Wednesday is an impermissible restriction on a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The law bans a method of ending a pregnancy, rather than limiting when an abortion can be performed.

''Today's decision is alarming,'' Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent. She said the ruling ''refuses to take ... seriously'' previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.

Ginsburg said the latest decision ''tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.''

Ginsburg said that for the first time since the court established a woman's right to an abortion in 1973, ''the court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health.''

She was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.

The procedure at issue involves partially removing the fetus intact from a woman's uterus, then crushing or cutting its skull to complete the abortion.

Abortion opponents say the law will not reduce the number of abortions performed because an alternate method -- dismembering the fetus in the uterus -- is available and, indeed, much more common.

In 2000, the court with key differences in its membership struck down a state ban on partial-birth abortions. Writing for a 5-4 majority at that time, Justice Breyer said the law imposed an undue burden on a woman's right to make an abortion decision.

The Republican-controlled Congress responded in 2003 by passing a federal law that asserted the procedure is gruesome, inhumane and never medically necessary to preserve a woman's health. That statement was designed to overcome the health exception to restrictions that the court has demanded in abortion cases.

But federal judges in California, Nebraska and New York said the law was unconstitutional, and three appellate courts agreed. The Supreme Court accepted appeals from California and Nebraska, setting up Wednesday's ruling.

Kennedy's dissent in 2000 was so strong that few court watchers expected him to take a different view of the current case.

Kennedy acknowledged continuing disagreement about the procedure within the medical community. In the past, courts have cited that uncertainty as a reason to allow the disputed procedure.

But Kennedy said, ''The law need not give abortion doctors unfettered choice in the course of their medical practice.''

He said the more common abortion method, involving dismemberment, is beyond the reach of the federal ban.

While the court upheld the law against a broad attack on its constitutionality, Kennedy said the court could entertain a challenge in which a doctor found it necessary to perform the banned procedure on a patient suffering certain medical complications.

Doctors most often refer to the procedure as a dilation and extraction or an intact dilation and evacuation abortion.

The law allows the procedure to be performed when a woman's life is in jeopardy.

The cases are Gonzales v. Carhart, 05-380, and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, 05-1382.

    Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Abortion Procedure, NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Scotus-Abortion.html?hp

Full Federal Appellate Court Will Revisit Abortion Issue in South Dakota

April 11, 2007
The New York Times
By SUSAN SAULNY

A South Dakota law that would require doctors to tell women seeking abortions that the procedure would “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being” will be revisited today by the 11 judges of the federal appeals court in St. Louis.

The statute is among many abortion laws around the country requiring counseling and consent. Such laws have been upheld in the Supreme Court and in federal appeals courts, but a federal judge has blocked South Dakota’s law while she considers its constitutionality.

The appeals court hearing is a second take on an October decision by a three-judge panel of the same body, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, that the law should remain blocked because it supplements factual information with a value judgment. The full Eighth Circuit court, acting on an appeal by the state, agreed to reconsider whether to allow the law to take effect.

South Dakota’s attorney general, Larry Long, said the appeal was largely based on the one dissenting view on the three-judge panel: that the required disclosure was an obvious fact. The State Legislature, Mr. Long said, had defined “human being” to mean a member of the species homo sapiens, and that phrase does not include a value judgment.

“Human being is not a loaded phrase,” he said. “That definition everyone agreed was appropriate.”

Mimi Liu, a lawyer for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which brought the suit, said the law violated the First Amendment.

“We were surprised that the Eighth Circuit decided to rehear this case, but we believe that the law is one our side, as the panel already found,” said Ms. Liu. Planned Parenthood is the only abortion provider in South Dakota.

“What we are fighting is the imposition of a state mandated non-science-based script read by a doctor to a patient in an attempt to intimidate the patient,” said Sarah Stoesz, the chief executive for Planned Parenthood in the three-state region of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.

The Legislature said the measure, which was enacted in 2005, was merely meant to fully inform women. It required that the statement about the life that would be terminated be made in writing, along with a dozen other statements, including some about the legal relationship between the mother and the fetus, and others about the increased risk of depression and suicide after abortions.

Patients would be required to sign each page of a written disclosure. Doctors would be required to certify whether they thought that the patient fully understood all the information.

The preliminary injunction blocking the law before it could take effect was issued in June 2005 by Judge Karen E. Schreier in Rapid City, S.D.

Judge Schreier wrote, “The South Dakota statute requires abortion doctors to enunciate the state’s viewpoint on an unsettled medical, philosophical, theological and scientific issue, that is, whether a fetus is a human being.”

The decision on the law’s constitutionality is still before Judge Schreier.

The full Eighth Circuit court’s decision on the injunction is not expected until late summer or early fall.

The fate of a different abortion law was decided in the November midterm elections, when a majority of voters in South Dakota rejected a broad ban on abortion.

    Full Federal Appellate Court Will Revisit Abortion Issue in South Dakota, NYT, 11.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/us/11abortion.html

Transgender Fla. City Manager Loses Job

March 24, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:05 a.m. ET
The New York Times

LARGO, Fla. (AP) -- City commissioners early Saturday finalized the firing of a city manager who is seeking a sex-change operation, despite pleas from dozens of impassioned supporters to save his job.

After a six-hour hearing, the commissioners decided to fire 48-year-old Steve Stanton after his announcement that he planned a new life as a woman. The move came after the commission voted 5-2 last month to suspend him with pay.

Commissioners contended Stanton was being fired because they lost confidence in him, not because he wants to be a woman.

''I think we're pretty well convinced,'' Commissioner Gay Gentry said. ''You have to believe us, you have to trust us, it is not about transgenderism.''

Stanton, 48, triggered the debate in the city of 76,000 west of Tampa last month when he announced his plans at a news conference. Commissioners said Stanton's announcement caused turmoil and work disruption in the city. His contract says he can be fired without cause at any time.

Stanton has not decided if he will sue over the firing.

''I was optimistic, but I knew it would be very difficult to slow down the train,'' he said following the hearing.

Stanton had asked commissioners to give city employees and the community ''an opportunity to show they can embrace a transgender city manager because that person is competent based on their skills, knowledge and education.''

Most of more than 70 other speakers -- including gay and lesbian activists and transgender people -- spoke passionately in favor of Stanton.

''I don't want the city of Largo to be the poster child for bigotry and discrimination,'' resident Mary Jensen told commissioners.

But others said Stanton bullied city employees, and the publicity generated by his announcement has cast the city in a negative light.

''This little thing has made Largo the laughingstock of the whole country,'' resident Jimmy Dean told commissioners. ''It's a disgrace.''

The city commission had given Stanton generally good reviews and a hefty raise last year for his management of the city's $130 million budget and roughly 1,200 employees. But since commissioners put Stanton on leave, some have criticized him for hard-nosed treatment of employees.

Stanton planned to change his name legally in August and begin living as a woman before having gender reassignment surgery in summer 2008.

He drafted an eight-page transition plan to prepare his employees and pursue the sex-change operation. He planned to announce the change this summer. But a St. Petersburg Times reporter learned his secret and he was forced to come out at a City Hall press conference on Feb. 21.

(Corrects terms of Stanton's suspension. He was suspended last month with pay.)

    Transgender Fla. City Manager Loses Job, NYT, 24.3.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Official-Sex-Change.html

Miss Tennessee Crowned New Miss USA

March 24, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:06 a.m. ET
The New York Times

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Rachel Smith, a journalism graduate from Tennessee, was crowned Miss USA on Friday, winning the contest to replace a titleholder whose reign was marred by a much-publicized struggle with alcoholism.

Smith, 21, of Clarksville, Tenn., graduated from Belmont University and interned last year for the production company behind ''The Oprah Winfrey Show.''

She edged out top finalists Meagan Yvonne Tandy of California; Cara Renee Gorges of Kansas; Helen Salas of Nevada; and Danielle Lacourse of Rhode Island.

''I'm speechless at this point, I really am,'' said Smith.

Contestants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia vied to succeed Miss USA Tara Conner, who entered rehab after accounts surfaced suggesting the Kentucky native was boozing at New York clubs.

The episode might have cost her the crown, but Donald Trump, who co-owns the pageant with NBC, gave her a second chance. Trump's decision sparked a war of words between him and ''The View'' co-host Rosie O'Donnell.

The 5-foot-11 Smith praised Conner's stewardship of the Miss USA title and her handling of the challenges she faced. Asked how she would behave during her reign, Smith said: ''I'm going to be honest and open.''

The telecast didn't shy away from the controversy, opening with a string of news and interview clips about Conner's woes. Then, the 21-year-old blonde emerged onto stage wearing a strapless, ruffled gown.

''It has been the most unforgettable year of my life and I'm back, and better than ever,'' Conner said to wild applause from the audience at the Kodak Theater.

During a brief onstage interview with the show's hosts, Tim Vincent and Nancy O'Dell of ''Access Hollywood,'' Conner said her future plans included writing a book, and doing ''correspondence work and a little bit of acting.''

Pageant organizers used the extra attention drawn to the pageant in recent months to spotlight the steps Conner has taken to get help.

During the swimsuit competition, the beauty queens performed a synchronized strut on stage wearing blue, pink or lilac bikinis before each posed for the judges. The contestants had brief walk-ons onstage in their evening gowns before the finalists took their solo strolls for the audience.

The audience was also given the opportunity to cast some votes, selecting Rebecca Moore of Alabama as Miss Photogenic. The contestants voted Stephanie Trudeau of Montana as Miss Congeniality.

The Miss USA Pageant began in 1952 as a swimwear promotion in Long Beach. Contestants pay a fee to enter and must win a state title before competing for the Miss USA crown.

The winner gets to live in a fancy New York apartment for a year, during which she'll spend most of her time traveling as a Miss Universe Organization representative and raise breast and ovarian cancer awareness. She also represents the United States in the worldwide Miss Universe competition.

A panel of six judges determined the winner: Jerry Springer, ''Blow Out'' star Jonathan Antin, ''E! News'' co-host Giuliana De Pandi, MTV's Vanessa Minnillo; Baby Phat President Kimora Lee Simmons and Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss.

    Miss Tennessee Crowned New Miss USA, NYT, 24.3.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Miss-USA.html

Giuliani Shifts Abortion Speech

Gently to Right

February 10, 2007
The New York Times
By RAY RIVERA

As he prepares for a possible run for president — a road that goes deep into the heart of conservative America — Rudolph W. Giuliani takes with him a belief in abortion rights that many think could derail his bid to capture the Republican nomination.

But in recent weeks, as he has courted voters in South Carolina and talked to conservative media outlets, Mr. Giuliani has highlighted a different element of his thinking on the abortion debate. He has talked about how he would appoint “strict constructionist” judges to the Supreme Court — what abortion rights advocates say is code among conservatives for those who seek to overturn or limit Roe v. Wade, the 1973 court ruling declaring a constitutional right to abortion.

The effect has been to distance himself from a position favoring abortion rights that he espoused when he ran for mayor of New York City, where most voters favor abortion rights.

“I hate it,” he said of abortion in a recent interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News. “I think abortion is something that, as a personal matter, I would advise somebody against. However, I believe in a woman’s right to choose. I think you have to ultimately not put a woman in jail for that.”

For Mr. Giuliani, a Brooklyn-born Roman Catholic who once considered entering the priesthood, the issue has been a source of discomfort throughout his political career, especially during his first bid for mayor of New York nearly two decades ago.

Now, as he courts voters in more conservative areas, Mr. Giuliani is turning to the same nuanced approach he used back then to explain how he can be both for abortion rights, while being morally opposed to abortion.

While Mr. Giuliani also faces obstacles for his stands favoring gun control and gay rights, perhaps no social issue resonates as deeply in the hearts of Christian conservatives as abortion.

In his recent travels, he has directed questions on the issue toward a discussion about judges, saying he would appoint jurists who believe in interpreting, not making, the law: judges, he said, like Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr., who he has said he believed would place limits on Roe v. Wade.

“On the federal judiciary I would want judges who are strict constructionists because I am,” he said last week in South Carolina. “I have a very, very strong view that for this country to work, for our freedoms to be protected, judges have to interpret, not invent, the Constitution.

“Otherwise you end up, when judges invent the Constitution, with your liberties being hurt. Because legislatures get to make those decisions and the Legislature in South Carolina might make that decision one way and the Legislature in California a different one.”

On the issue of a disputed abortion procedure called “partial-birth abortion” by opponents, he told Mr. Hannity that a ban signed into law by President Bush in 2003, which the Supreme Court is reviewing, should be upheld. And on the issue of parental notification — whether to require minors to obtain permission from either a parent or a judge before an abortion — he said, “I think you have to have a judicial bypass,” meaning a provision that would allow a minor to seek court permission from a judge in lieu of a parent.

“If you do, you can have parental notification,” he said.

Both appear to be shifts away from statements he made while he was mayor and during his brief campaign for United States senator in 2000. Asked by Tim Russert on “Meet the Press” in 2000 if he supported President Bill Clinton’s veto of a law that would have banned the disputed abortion procedure, Mr. Giuliani said, “I would vote to preserve the option for women.” He added, “I think the better thing for America to do is to leave that choice to the woman, because it affects her probably more than anyone else.”

And on a 1997 candidate questionnaire from the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League of New York, which Mr. Giuliani completed and signed, he marked “yes” to the question: Would you oppose legislation “requiring a minor to obtain permission from a parent or from a court before obtaining an abortion.”

Mr. Giuliani’s campaign aides say his positions on abortion have not changed, and that his stand on what critics call partial-birth abortions has been mischaracterized, saying he opposed a ban only if it failed to include an exception to protect the life of the mother. But the ban vetoed by President Clinton did include such an exception.

Those who have followed Mr. Giuliani’s career say he is unlikely to undergo a radical shift in his views in the manner of Mitt Romney, a Republican rival and former Massachusetts governor who advocated abortion rights until about two years ago.

Fred Siegel, author of “Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life,” said Mr. Giuliani would likely be careful to avoid anything perceived as a flip-flop on the issue.

“Part of his appeal is that he doesn’t bend in the wind,” he said.

But Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, said Mr. Giuliani’s position was even more offensive than that of someone who believes abortion is morally acceptable.

“To say I think it’s morally wrong, but I think it’s a woman’s choice is like saying I’m opposed to segregation but it ought to be left up to the store owner to decide,” Mr. Land said. “That’s a preference, not a conviction.”

Rancor coming from both sides of the abortion debate is nothing new to Mr. Giuliani. When he made his first bid for mayor in 1989, he was widely considered anti-abortion. His stance immediately proved problematic in a city heavily in favor of abortion rights. New York was the first state to legalize elective abortions, three years before Roe v. Wade.

Early in the 1989 campaign, he told the city’s Conservative Party leaders he was personally opposed to abortion and was for overturning Roe v. Wade, except in cases of rape or incest. At the same time he said he opposed criminal penalties and ultimately saw it as an issue of “personal morality.”

The distinctions he drew were subtle to the point of producing conflicting news accounts in which he was alternately described as favoring abortion rights and anti-abortion.

The issue took on more importance that summer after a Supreme Court decision allowed states to put new restrictions on abortion. As criticism mounted, Mr. Giuliani remained silent for weeks after the decision. Finally, in late August of that year, he issued a statement seeking to “clarify” his position.

Where he previously asserted that he would stay away from efforts to protect or overturn the state abortion law, he now said he would fight moves to make it illegal.

Critics ascribed his switch to political opportunism. Chief among his critics were his rivals for the mayor’s post, the incumbent, Mayor Edward I. Koch, and the eventual winner of that election, David N. Dinkins, both of whom accused him of heeding the advice of his campaign strategists over his conscience.

Mr. Giuliani defended his change, saying it was the result of deep introspection, not political expediency. “I had to spend time not only thinking about it, but talking about it with my wife and people close to me to focus on it in a closer way than I have in the past,” he told The New York Times in an interview at the time.

“This is a guy who is a Catholic, who thought about going into the priesthood, he has close friends who are priests,” said Mr. Siegel, “when he realizes he can’t get elected in New York if you’re anti-abortion and he begins to modify his position, and eventually he goes all the way to being in favor of later-term abortions.”

Fran Reiter, who was a deputy mayor under Mr. Giuliani and played key roles in two of his campaigns, believes his acceptance of abortion rights was heartfelt, not a political move. After winning the mayor’s office in 1993, he supported and strengthened legislation protecting women’s access to abortion clinics.

The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League of New York was so convinced, it remained neutral in the 1993 and 1997 mayoral races, and did so again when he briefly ran against Hillary Rodham Clinton for United States in 2000 before dropping out of the race.

“That tells you how strongly we felt, that we would actually remain neutral when he’s running against the first lady of the United States,” said Kelli Conlin, the state organization’s president, who served on Mr. Giuliani’s 1993 transition team and on several mayoral commissions.

Now Ms. Conlin and other abortion rights advocates, including Ms. Reiter, say Mr. Giuliani clearly appears to be distancing himself from his former positions.

“The term strict constructionists has become a transparent code word for nominating judges who would overturn Roe, and both sides know it,” Ms. Conlin said. “I think this is a troublesome wink and a nod to the far right of the Republican Party, and that’s not the Rudy Giuliani I know.”

Buddy Witherspoon, Republican National Committeeman from South Carolina, said Mr. Giuliani’s recent appearance with party leaders there shifted his and some others’ perceptions of the candidate, though not enough to satisfy the most socially conservative among them.

“All I’d heard from the media is that he was a moderate in support of abortion,” Mr. Witherspoon said, “then I heard him say he did not support abortion, however he also said he did not think a woman should go to jail for having had an abortion.”

    Giuliani Shifts Abortion Speech Gently to Right, NYT, 10.2.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/10/us/politics/10rudy.html

Anna Nicole Smith Is Found Dead

in Florida

February 9, 2007
The New York Times
By ABBY GOODNOUGH and MARGALIT FOX

MIAMI, Feb. 8 — Anna Nicole Smith, a former Playboy centerfold, actress and television personality who was famous, above all, for being famous, but also for being sporadically rich and chronically litigious, was found dead on Thursday in her suite at the Seminole Hard Rock Cafe Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla. She was 39, and the cause of her death was not immediately known.

A personal nurse traveling with Ms. Smith called the hotel operator at 1:38 p.m. to report she had found Ms. Smith alone and unconscious in her sixth-floor suite, the police said. Ms. Smith’s bodyguard arrived a few minutes later and tried to revive her with cardiopulmonary resuscitation, as did paramedics, who arrived after 2 p.m., they said, but she was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital at 2:49 p.m. The office of the Broward County Medical Examiner was to perform an autopsy on Friday morning.

A paramedic with the Hollywood Fire Rescue Department told WTVJ-TV that Ms. Smith was not breathing when he and other rescue workers arrived in her suite, and that they had tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to restore her heartbeat.

“There was just no way of knowing how long she’d been down before she was discovered,” the paramedic, Capt. Dan Fitzgerald, told the television station. He said Ms. Smith’s companion, Howard K. Stern, was in the room when the rescue team arrived and had provided her medical history.

A lawyer for Ms. Smith, Ronald Rale, said she had complained of flulike symptoms earlier in the week and was “run down” from her recent troubles, including the death of her 20-year-old son and a paternity suit over her infant daughter. Mr. Rale would not say why she was visiting Florida, but a spokesman for the hotel, a flashy, sprawling complex on Seminole Indian land, said Ms. Smith had stayed there several times since it opened in 2004.

“She was trying her hardest,” Mr. Rale said in a packed news conference at his law office in Los Angeles. “I grieve for Anna Nicole that she had to endure what she had to endure. I just pray that that’s not what precipitated this.”

The product of a hardscrabble Texas girlhood, Ms. Smith, at least in her mature years, was obtrusively voluptuous and almost preternaturally blonde. A ninth-grade dropout, she rose quickly from life as a small-town wife and mother to a high-profile career as a topless dancer; pinup; model; film actress; reality-show star; clothing designer; product endorser; and, briefly but most notably, wife of a tycoon nearly four times her age in a marriage that would eventually propel her to the United States Supreme Court in a fight over his billion-dollar estate.

For gossip columnists and supermarket tabloids, Ms. Smith’s life provided endless fodder. She often found herself in court, as either the complainant or the defendant. She publicly battled bankruptcy, drug addiction and wild fluctuations in her weight. And she was much in the headlines last fall when, over three days, her second child was born and her first died abruptly.

Ms. Smith was widely known to television viewers as the star of “The Anna Nicole Show,” broadcast on the E! network from 2002 to 2004. The show chronicled the minutiae of its heroine’s daily life, which showed her on visits to her dentists and giving Prozac to her dog. Ms. Smith was also familiar as a spokeswoman for TrimSpa, a diet supplement. (In a class-action suit filed in Los Angeles this month, Ms. Smith and TrimSpa’s manufacturer were accused of false and misleading marketing.)

She appeared in several movies, among them “The Hudsucker Proxy” (1994) and “Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult” (1994). Her other cinematic credits include “Playboy Video Playmate Calendar” (1993); and “Playboy’s 50th Anniversary Celebration” (2003).

Ms. Smith was born Vickie Lynn Hogan on Nov. 28, 1967, in Mexia, Tex. Her parents divorced when she was an infant, and her mother, Virgie, a police officer, reared her alone. When she was a teenager, she married Billy Smith, a 16-year-old fry cook. Their son, Daniel, was born in 1986; the couple divorced in 1987.

Ms. Smith worked as a waitress, later becoming a topless dancer in Houston. After submitting photos to Playboy, she appeared on the cover of the March 1992 issue. In 1993, she was named Playmate of the Year.

In 1994, Ms. Smith married J. Howard Marshall II, a Texas oil billionaire and former professor of trusts and estates at Yale Law School whom she had met in the course of her dancing career. She was 26; he was 89. Married life for Ms. Smith was a bounteous stream of clothes and jewelry.

In 1995, after 14 months of marriage, Mr. Marshall died, setting off a series of legal victories and reversals, which for Ms. Smith included these: fighting Mr. Marshall’s son E. Pierce Marshall for the right to inherit his father’s estate; being awarded $474 million in federal court; having the award reduced to just under $89 million; having it overturned altogether; and appealing the case to the Supreme Court.

In May of last year, the justices ruled that the dispute properly belonged in federal court, giving Ms. Smith another chance to collect millions. Although E. Pierce Marshall died in June after a brief illness, the case was still pending at the time of Ms. Smith’s death.

On Sept. 7, 2006, Ms. Smith gave birth to a daughter, Dannielynn. On Sept. 10, Daniel, Ms. Smith’s son from her first marriage, died suddenly while visiting mother and child in the hospital in the Bahamas. A medical examiner hired by the family found that the death was the accidental result of the interaction of methadone with antidepressants.

Besides her daughter, Dannielynn, Ms. Smith is survived by Mr. Stern, a lawyer who she said was the child’s father. (Last fall, Larry Birkhead, a former boyfriend of Ms. Smith, filed suit, claiming he had fathered Dannielynn.) Information on other survivors could not be confirmed.

Mr. Rale, Ms. Smith’s lawyer, said the paternity issue would be addressed at a court hearing on Friday in Los Angeles. In an interview with Los Angeles magazine in 1994, Ms. Smith was asked whether her rapid success troubled her in any way.

“Oh, no, I like it,” she said. “I love the paparazzi. They take pictures, and I just smile away. I’ve always liked attention. I didn’t get it very much growing up, and I always wanted to be, you know, noticed.”

Abby Goodnough reported from Miami, and Margalit Fox from New York. Terry Aguayo contributed reporting from Hollywood, Fla., and Lisa Muñoz from Los Angeles.

    Anna Nicole Smith Is Found Dead in Florida, NYT, 9.2.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/us/09smith.html

51% of Women

Are Now Living Without Spouse

January 16, 2007
The New York Times
By SAM ROBERTS

For what experts say is probably the first time, more American women are living without a husband than with one, according to a New York Times analysis of census results.

In 2005, 51 percent of women said they were living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000.

Coupled with the fact that in 2005 married couples became a minority of all American households for the first time, the trend could ultimately shape social and workplace policies, including the ways government and employers distribute benefits.

Several factors are driving the statistical shift. At one end of the age spectrum, women are marrying later or living with unmarried partners more often and for longer periods. At the other end, women are living longer as widows and, after a divorce, are more likely than men to delay remarriage, sometimes delighting in their newfound freedom.

In addition, marriage rates among black women remain low. Only about 30 percent of black women are living with a spouse, according to the Census Bureau, compared with about 49 percent of Hispanic women, 55 percent of non-Hispanic white women and more than 60 percent of Asian women.

In a relatively small number of cases, the living arrangement is temporary, because the husbands are working out of town, are in the military or are institutionalized. But while most women eventually marry, the larger trend is unmistakable.

“This is yet another of the inexorable signs that there is no going back to a world where we can assume that marriage is the main institution that organizes people’s lives,” said Prof. Stephanie Coontz, director of public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit research group. “Most of these women will marry, or have married. But on average, Americans now spend half their adult lives outside marriage.”

Professor Coontz said this was probably unprecedented with the possible exception of major wartime mobilizations and when black couples were separated during slavery.

William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, a research group in Washington, described the shift as “a clear tipping point, reflecting the culmination of post-1960 trends associated with greater independence and more flexible lifestyles for women.”

“For better or worse, women are less dependent on men or the institution of marriage,” Dr. Frey said. “Younger women understand this better, and are preparing to live longer parts of their lives alone or with nonmarried partners. For many older boomer and senior women, the institution of marriage did not hold the promise they might have hoped for, growing up in an ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ era.”

Emily Zuzik, a 32-year-old musician and model who lives in the East Village of Manhattan, said she was not surprised by the trend.

“A lot of my friends are divorced or single or living alone,” Ms. Zuzik said. “I know a lot of people in their 30s who have roommates.”

Ms. Zuzik has lived with a boyfriend twice, once in California where the couple registered as domestic partners to qualify for his health insurance plan. “I don’t plan to live with anyone else again until I am married,” she said, “and I may opt to keep a place of my own even then.”

Linda Barth, a 56-year-old magazine editor in Houston who has never married, said, “I used to divide my women friends into single friends and married friends. Now that doesn’t seem to be an issue.”

Sheila Jamison, who also lives in the East Village and works for a media company, is 45 and single. She says her family believes she would have had a better chance of finding a husband had she attended a historically black college instead of Duke.

“Considering all the weddings I attended in the ’80s that have ended so very, very badly, I consider myself straight up lucky,” Ms. Jamison said. “I have not sworn off marriage, but if I do wed, it will be to have a companion with whom I can travel and play parlor games in my old age.”

Carol Crenshaw, 57, of Roswell, Ga., was divorced in 2005 after 33 years and says she is in no hurry to marry again.

“I’m in a place in my life where I’m comfortable,” said Ms. Crenshaw, who has two grown sons. “I can do what I want, when I want, with whom I want. I was a wife and a mother. I don’t feel like I need to do that again.”

Similarly, Shelley Fidler, 59, a public policy adviser at a law firm, has sworn off marriage. She moved from rural Virginia to the vibrant Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C., when her 30-year marriage ended.

“The benefits were completely unforeseen for me,” Ms. Fidler said, “the free time, the amount of time I get to spend with friends, the time I have alone, which I value tremendously, the flexibility in terms of work, travel and cultural events.”

Among the more than 117 million women over the age of 15, according to the marital status category in the Census Bureau’s latest American Community Survey, 63 million are married. Of those, 3.1 million are legally separated and 2.4 million said their husbands were not living at home for one reason or another.

That brings the number of American women actually living with a spouse to 57.5 million, compared with the 59.9 million who are single or whose husbands were not living at home when the survey was taken in 2005.

Some of those situations, which the census identifies as “spouse absent” and “other,” are temporary, and, of course, even some people who describe themselves as separated eventually reunite with their spouses.

Over all, a larger share of men are married and living with their spouse — about 53 percent compared with 49 percent among women.

“Since women continue to outlive men, they have reached the nonmarital tipping point — more nonmarried than married,” Dr. Frey said. “This suggests that most girls growing up today can look forward to spending more of their lives outside of a traditional marriage.”

Pamela J. Smock, a researcher at the University of Michigan Population Studies Center, agreed, saying that “changing patterns of courtship, marriage, and that we are living longer lives all play a role.”

“Men also remarry more quickly than women after a divorce,” Ms. Smock added, “and both are increasingly likely to cohabit rather than remarry after a divorce.”

The proportion of married people, especially among younger age groups, has been declining for decades. Between 1950 and 2000, the share of women 15-to-24 who were married plummeted to 16 percent, from 42 percent. Among 25-to-34-year-olds, the proportion dropped to 58 percent, from 82 percent.

“Although we can help people ‘do’ marriage better, it is simply delusional to construct social policy or make personal life decisions on the basis that you can count on people spending most of their adult lives in marriage,” said Professor Coontz, the author of “Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage.”

Besse Gardner, 24, said she and her boyfriend met as college freshmen and started living together last April “for all the wrong reasons” — they found a great apartment on the beach in Los Angeles.

“We do not see living together as an end or even for the rest of our lives — it’s just fun right now,” Ms. Gardner said. “My roommate is someone I’d be thrilled to marry one day, but it just doesn’t make sense right now.”

Ms. Crenshaw said that some of the women in her support group for divorced women were miserable, but that she was surprised how happy she was to be single again.

“That’s not how I grew up,” she said. “That’s not how society thinks. It’s a marriage culture.”

Elissa B. Terris, 59, of Marietta, Ga., divorced in 2005 after being married for 34 years and raising a daughter, who is now an adult.

“A gentleman asked me to marry him and I said no,” she recalled. “I told him, ‘I’m just beginning to fly again, I’m just beginning to be me. Don’t take that away.’ ”

“Marriage kind of aged me because there weren’t options,” Ms. Terris said. “There was only one way to go. Now I have choices. One night I slept on the other side of the bed, and I thought, I like this side.”

She said she was returning to college to get a master’s degree (her former husband “didn’t want me to do that because I was more educated than he was”), had taken photography classes and was auditioning for a play.

“Once you go through something you think will kill you and it doesn’t,” she said, “every day is like a present.”

Ariel Sabar, Brenda Goodman and Maureen Balleza contributed reporting.

51% of Women Are Now Living Without Spouse, NYT, 16.1.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/us/16census.html