Presidential candidates tossed their opinions on abortion into the public arena Tuesday, which marked the 35th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave women the right to choose.Speaking to March for Life participants in Washington, President George Bush said biology confirms from the start that each unborn child is a separate individual with his or her own genetic code. “Babies can now survive outside the mother’s womb at younger and younger ages. And the fingers and toes and beating hearts that we can see on an unborn child’s ultrasound come with something that we cannot see: a soul,” he told the rally.Bush said anti-abortion groups were heartened by news that the number of abortions is declining. “But the most recent data reports that more than one in five pregnancies end in an abortion. America is better than this, so we will continue to work for a culture of life where a woman with an unplanned pregnancy knows there are caring people who will support her; where a pregnant teen can carry her child and complete her education; where the dignity of both the mother and child is honored and cherished,” he said.Presidential candidate Barack Obama took a different stance, stating it has never been more important to protect a woman’s right to choose.”Last year, the Supreme Court decided by a vote of 5-4 to uphold the federal abortion ban, and in doing so undermined an important principle of Roe v. Wade: that we must always protect women’s health. With one more vacancy on the Supreme Court, we could be looking at a majority hostile to a women’s fundamental right to choose for the first time since Roe v. Wade. The next President may be asked to nominate that Supreme Court justice. That is what is at stake in this election,” he said.Obama said Roe v. Wade is about more than a woman’s right to choose. “It’s about equality,” he said. “It’s about whether our daughters are going to have the same opportunities as our sons.”The Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts met Tuesday with state Attorney General Martha Coakley to convey its message about the importance of Roe v. Wade.Planned Parenthood is part of the Coalition for Choice, said spokesman Lisa Dacey, noting that the organization released a booklet containing 35 essays by abortion-rights leaders in Massachusetts, one for each year since the Supreme Court ruling.”The issue is certainly about the health of the woman and her freedom to make all reproductive decisions,” Dacey said. “At Planned Parenthood, we believe in providing medially accurate information, which is how we help women make the right decision – and that’s a private decision among her, her family and her doctor.”Planned Parenthood has offices in Boston, Worcester and Springfield, and an express clinic in Somerville that provides birth control and testing for sexually-transmitted diseases.Operation Rescue, an active anti-abortion organization, used the anniversary to call attention to the death of 22-year-old Laura Hope Smith at the Women Health Clinic in Hyannis last Sept. 13. The young woman died of cardiac arrest during an abortion procedure.Smith’s mother, Eileen, told Operation Rescue she was unaware her daughter was 13 weeks pregnant and considering an abortion. Eileen Smith said she plans to take legal action against the doctor.Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported Tuesday that the French abortion pill RU-486, on the market since 2000, has become an increasingly common alternative, making abortion less clinical and more private.At a time when the overall number of abortions has been steadily declining, RU-486-induced abortions have been rising by 22 percent a year and now account for 14 percent of the total – and more than one in five early abortions performed by the ninth week of pregnancy.The pill, often called “miffy” after its chemical name mifepristone and brand name Mifeprex, also has helped slow the decline in abortion providers, as more physicians who previously did not perform the pro