We've Had Abortions, Say 5,000 Americans As Crucial Vote Nears

More than 5,000 women from across the United States have revealed that they have had abortions, in advance of a crucial vote next month that could determine whether terminations remain legal across the country.

The list, published next week in the feminist magazine Ms, includes its co-founder Gloria Steinem, the actor Kathy Najimy and comedian Carol Leifer. But most of the names are of ordinary women who have joined the petition out of fear that the tide is turning against legal abortions in America.

South Dakota votes on November 7 on whether to overturn a state law banning virtually all abortions, including those undergone for reasons of rape, incest or a woman's health. Only abortions needed to prevent the woman's death are permitted under the law.

Should the ban be upheld in the vote it would then be passed up to the supreme court and be used to challenge Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 judgment that overrides all state-level bans on the grounds of individual freedom. The replacement in January of the moderate judge Sandra Day O'Connor with the conservative Samuel Alito, in the nine-member court, is deemed to make the ruling vulnerable.

Pro-abortion campaigners warn that if Roe v Wade were overturned the knock-on effects would be widespread and immediate.

Seventeen states already have anti-abortion trigger laws or pre-Roe v Wade statutes that would automatically come into force.

"The right of access to safe abortions in America is under direct threat," said Ms magazine's executive editor, Katherine Spillar.

Tyffine Jones, 27, is one of the signatories of the Ms petition. In her state of Mississippi there is only one legal abortion clinic, which she attended 10 years ago when she was still at high school. She had to walk through anti-abortion activists to reach the clinic.

"They were holding a prayer line as I walked into the clinic, spitting at me and shouting I would rot in hell. That took its toll on me. I was 17 and fragile. They made me think there would be no forgiveness for me."

The Ms petition echoes previous public protests. The launch edition of Ms in 1972 ran the names of 53 well-known US women who declared they had had abortions. That in turn was modelled on the action a year previously of 343 prominent French women.

Anti-abortionists have dismissed the petition. Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, said that when she first saw the petition "the evil practically jumped off the page".