As Women's History Month draws to a close and a week recognizing human rights begins Monday, a fundamental right for women frighteningly remains threatened -- the 16-year-old coveted right to control their reproductive abilities.

The debate over abortion -- only one of a spectrum of rights regarding a woman's ability to reproduce -- has become no less controversial or emotional since the Supreme Court legalized the right in 1973. Pro-choice advocates and anti-abortionists remain opposed diametrically, and realistically it appears the rhetoric and values of each group never will meet.

Each woman brings to the issue her personal religion, background and family values. Because those differ from the 22-year-old Catholic woman living in a rich Philadelphia suburb to the Jewish wife in New York to a teenager growing up in the poverty of Detroit, the right must exist for each woman to weigh her morality against the fetus's potential for life and her desire to have children.

No one reserves the "right" to dictate private morality or to impose on another the decision that individual would make. The government already has made too many decisions creating a sad reality in America: the need for abortion often is a symptom of greater problems women face.

In an ideal nation, contraception and education would be available not only for affluent women, but also for those from lower socio-economic brackets. In an ideal nation, women who decide to have children could afford to raise them as they wish regardless of their class. In ideal nation, women would not need to terminate a pregnancy caused by rape.

But this is not reality.

In the wake of the Reagan years and the nation's ideological sway toward the conservative right, those challenging the only logical approach to abortion -- choice -- have grown stronger and more influential in government.

Funding has been limited for clinics that provide abortion counseling. President Bush considers abortion an American tragedy, and since his election, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case which could overturn Roe v. Wade -- the landmark case which established a woman's right to abortion.

The case, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, involves Missouri statutes which restrict women's rights to abortion. The state asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review Roe v. Wade after the 8th Circuit Court struck down the statutes, citing the famed case as precedent.

Earlier this month, the National Organization for Women's Pennsylvania chapter insightfully declared a state of emergency over the high court's decision which could give individual state governments the power to determine the legality of abortion.

Inconsistent state laws could mean a woman permitted to have an abortion in one state would be charged as a criminal in another.

If the abortion laws are overturned, abortions will not cease. Women have been aborting unwanted pregnancies ever since the recording of history. What will cease is fair funding for abortions and safe, clinical procedures.

The issue continues to be a divisive one, as reflected in poll after poll. Because it is unrealistic to assume that people will abandon their individual beliefs, the constitutional right for a woman to choose her option must remain intact.