Thornburgh Predicts Justices Will Reverse Abortion Ruling

WASHINGTON — Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh predicted Friday that the Supreme Court will overrule its landmark decision legalizing abortion this year and turn the issue “back to the states.”

In a rare comment by the government’s top legal officer on a pending court case, Thornburgh said in a television interview, to be broadcast today, that it was “my guess” that the outcome of a new test case on the issue would be abandonment of the 1973 decision that assured women a constitutional right to end pregnancy.

The Reagan Administration, in a document that Thornburgh approved, had urged the Supreme Court to use a case from Missouri as the vehicle for taking a new look at the controversy, which could lead to an overruling.

Last Monday, the court put the Missouri case on its docket for the current term, indicating that a final ruling is likely before summer, following an April hearing.

Thornburgh, in an interview taped for broadcast on the Cable News Network’s “Evans and Novak” program, cautioned that “anyone who predicts what the court’s going to do does so at a great deal of risk.”

Nonetheless, the attorney general went on to make a prediction, saying: “My sense would be that if they choose to act--and that’s what we have suggested--that the most likely result would be that they would turn it back to the states.”

At Senate hearings last year, when he was named attorney general, Thornburgh had said he would seek out a case to test the court’s willingness to keep the 1973 decision intact.