Tribe Testifies

Laurence H. Tribe '62, professor of Law, last week urged a Senate sub-committee to reject a proposed constitutional amendment to restrict abortion, saying that the measure "would distort the constitutional framework."

Arguing against an amendment proposed by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the subcommittee on the Constitution, Tribe said the government lacks the power to restrict abortion clinics in states where the clinics are now legal.

A Step Beyond

"In order to protect the fetal life, such an amendment would have to go well beyond inviting individual states to ban abortion," Tribe told the panel. "The most basic human impulses are likely to prevent even the most rigid abortion laws from being strictly enforced," he added.

Hatch's proposal would overturn a 1973 Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion. The conservative senator has said Congress and individual states should be allowed to restrict abortions, and his subcommittee will continue to hold hearings on the proposed amendment through November.

Tribe, a constitutional expert, said in an interview on Friday that the Hatch amendment has received more support this year than in the past because of the Senate's conservative Republican leadership and pressure from far-Right political action committees.

He told the senators, however, that the proposed amendment would place an unfair burden on pregnant women "to dedicate their bodies, their futures and sometimes their very lives to the survival of the unborn."