JUSTICE KENNEDY BLOCKS FLORIDA TEEN'S ABORTION

Activists on both sides of the abortion debate are giving too much significance to a US Supreme Court justice's order blocking a 15-year-old girl's abortion, says a lawyer who helped draft the appeal. Justice Anthony Kennedy decided Tuesday to, in effect, reinstate a Florida law that requires girls under 18 to obtain the consent of their parents or a judge before they can get an abortion, although a state appeals court had ruled it unconstitutional.

His order did not address any legal or constitutional issues, but merely put off further consideration of the matter until the full court's scheduled Thursday conference.