In 1991, a Utah Legislature intent on overturning Roe v. Wade passed a law that would have banned abortions except in the case of rape, incest, to save the mother's life, to prevent grave danger to her health or to prevent the birth of a baby with grave defects. In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the core of that law by ruling, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that women have a constitutional right to an abortion prior to the time a fetus can survive outside a mother's womb.

But some members of the current Utah Legislature believe that the Supreme Court was wrong in 1973, when it decided Roe, and again in 1992. They want to take up the fallen anti-abortion standard once again by passing a law similar to the one their predecessors enacted in 1991.

We believe this would be a mistake for several reasons, the most important being that a woman's right to an abortion during the early months of pregnancy is by now a settled matter of constitutional law. We further believe that Utahns, like Americans generally, agonize over the moral dilemma of abortion but are not clamoring for a change in the law.

Rather, we believe this is a wedge issue that the religious right of the Republican Party uses to define itself, to motivate partisan activism and to drive its voters to the polls.

This renewed crusade to overturn Roe is grounded in the hope that the more conservative Supreme Court appointees of President Bush are more likely to strike down the precedent. This may or may not be true. The only way to find out is to undertake a long, politically divisive legal battle.

That would be expensive. The last, fruitless tilt at this windmill cost Utah taxpayers about $1 million. A renewed fight could cost several times that.

A better use for this money, and a better way to prevent the 3,000 abortions that occur annually in Utah, would be to provide comprehensive, meaningful sex education in Utah's public schools and to require health insurers to cover contraception.

Pretending, as some Utahns would, that abstinence education alone is the only safe and effective road to birth control and preventing abortion is simply unrealistic.

Given the choice, we would invest in education over litigation.

A woman's right to an abortion during the early months of pregnancy is by now a settled matter of constitutional law.