Abortion is shaping up as a battleground in the early days of George W. Bush's presidency, with feminists vowing to defend a woman's right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and the new administration considering measures to restrict abortion access.
Women's rights activists and abortion foes alike have planned numerous demonstrations across the United States and in the US capital Monday to mark the 28th anniversary of the landmark Roe versus Wade case that legalized abortion.
Abortion rights was one of the few issues on which the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates differed strongly, but many of the bitterest battles surrounding the 2000 presidential campaign focused on whether Bush would nominate Supreme Court justices who would overturn the 1973 decision.
But feminists have shifted their concerns, saying they are most worried now that the new president will incrementally and unilaterally limit access to abortion.
Bush, an abortion opponent, said through an aide Sunday that he will review all of Clinton's edicts, including those that provide federal aid to family planning groups that promote abortion overseas.
"We're reviewing the timing of what we will do," said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer Sunday.
"The president does not support using federal funds to promote abortion," Fleischer said.
Betty Friedan, considered the 'mother' of the US feminist movement said abortion supporters may be in for a rough ride under the new administration.
"I fear that we are entering a much more troublesome climate, that we're going to have to fight," she said.
"If Bush accedes to the right-wing influences and tries to weaken the right to choose or weaken affirmative action and these measures that protect women from sex and race discrimination, then we will have to mobilize our power as we haven't done in recent years," Friedan said.
Anti abortion activist are thrilled at the prospect of a Bush presidency and the possibility that abortion rights might be rolled back.
"Bush could do a lot to once again place life as a very high priority," said Heather Cirmo, spokeswoman for the conservative Family Research Council.
To some degree, Bush is hoping to undo what his predecessor ex-president Bill Clinton did.
On his third day in office in 1993, Clinton lifted "gag rules" that banned most abortion counseling at federally-financed clinics, set aside restrictions on federally sponsored fetal-tissue research, and permitted US military hospitals overseas to perform abortions.
He also ended prohibitions on aid to international family planning programs and set in motion the process that led to federal approval last fall of RU-486, the abortion pill. Later, Clinton twice vetoed legislation to prohibit so-called partial-birth abortions, a rare procedure performed late in pregnancy.
Feminists are not sure that any of these gains will survive a Bush administration.
"I really do believe that this administration will try very hard to set us back a few decades," said Leslie Wolfe, president of the feminist Center for Women Policy Priorities.
A top aide to President George W. Bush said Sunday the new administration would review approval of RU-486 by the US Food and Drug Administration.
The controversial abortion pill went on sale in the United States in late September, after 12 years of debate in Washington over whether it is safe or ethical.
Mifepristone, or RU-486, induces miscarriage by blocking a hormone needed to maintain pregnancy and is the only non-surgical alternative for women who wish to terminate a pregnancy up to seven weeks after gestation -- WASHINGTON (AFP)
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