Roe v. Wade at twenty-five.

• Position: Progress for the pro-choice movement is mixed as Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion reaches 25th anniversary - Column

The pro-choice movement is celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision making abortion legal.

But it's not the happiest party. Women are having more and more difficulty getting access to safe abortions.

"In the twenty-five years since the Roe v. Wade decision, almost all the steps have been backward," says Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "The Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed the basic right to abortion, but it has also given legislative bodies increasing authority to restrict access."

"The choice to have an abortion is more difficult for women today than at any time since Roe v. Wade," agrees Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL). "1997 was a dramatic year. It was probably the worst."

Last year, the 105th Congress banned access to privately funded abortions ,at overseas military hospitals for servicewomen and military dependents, banned abortions for women in federal prison, prohibited insurance for federal employees from covering abortions, and prohibited abortions for Medicaid recipients except in cases of life endangerment, rape, or incest.

The new law affecting women in the military prohibits servicewomen from getting abortions in military hospitals, even if they pay for them. This is particularly onerous for female soldiers stationed in countries where abortion is illegal.

Feldt says some prisons go so far as to refuse to transport the prisoner even if Planned Parenthood agrees to do the abortion free of charge.

The infringement of the right to abortion comes not just from government, but from the private sector as well. Catholic hospitals--and even some secular ones--are gobbling up other hospitals and closing off the abortion option (see "Blocking Women's Health Care," by Melanie Conklin, January issue).

The campaign against third-trimester "partial-birth abortion" has also tilted the debate. These late-term abortions are relatively rare and often occur when something has gone terribly wrong with the pregnancy or when the mother's health is in danger.

Legislation inspired by the partial-birth-abortion debate would pave the way for overturning Roe. "While they have-told you that those bans protect against a gruesome procedure that occurs in the third trimester of a pregnancy, the definition these laws use reaches any safe and common method of abortion from the end of the first...