Women's eNews
Wednesday 16 January 2008
Instead of offering a chance to celebrate, Gloria Feldt says the 35th anniversary of a wounded Roe v. Wade creates a moment of intense decision and requires a bold new perspective on reproductive self-determination.
As a wounded Roe v. Wade approaches its 35th anniversary on Jan. 22, our popular narrative urgently begs for a full-scale, ground-up offensive to enshrine reproductive rights as human rights and create a more durable approach than the right to privacy - however valuable - has ever given women.
Instead we get William Kristol - who cynically advised Republicans two decades ago to remove the anti-abortion plank to win elections but to focus on restrictions that humiliate and endanger women - starting last week as a regular New York Times columnist. By paragraph four he had worked in a reference to "life" as interchangeable with restricting women's control over their own bodies.
And on Tuesday, NARAL Pro-Choice America's "Choice at Risk" report gave the nation a grade of D-Minus on access to contraception and abortion.
Last year, meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court drove a stake through Roe's heart by stripping away the principle that women's health is primary in its Gonzales v. Carhart decision.
But while most of the Republican presidential candidates compete to out-anti-Roe each other all is not lost. Not yet. Voters also have a lineup of Democratic hopefuls vying for the most pro-choice mantle and women are turning out in record numbers in the Democratic primaries.
So there's hope in strong political engagement and in asking these questions of the candidates seeking your vote:
"Where do you stand on the federal Freedom of Choice Act that would guarantee women's right to childbearing choices without coercion or discrimination?""Will you take leadership to ensure that women are first-class citizens deemed morally capable and legally guaranteed the civil right to make their own childbearing choices?"
We Thought Roe Was Permanent
Some of us thought Roe v. Wade fixed reproductive self-determination within the firmament of other fundamental constitutional guarantees of liberty and justice for all.
Now, evidence of just how far into retreat this landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision has been pushed is all around.
Pro-Roe swing vote Justice Sandra Day O'Connor retired in 2006 and was replaced by Justice Samuel Alito, who as a U.S. Justice Department attorney authored the incremental strategy to overturn Roe. Even before Alito's sinister arrival, the high court, in its 1992 ruling on Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, allowed legislators to restrict access to abortion so long as they don't create an "undue burden."
Thus far, almost no burden has been judged undue as the majority of states rushed to pass laws that reduce women's access to safe, legal abortion.
Last year's Gonzales v. Carhart decision drove a nail into women's coffins by upholding the federal abortion ban, signaling that the new Bush Court will also allow Congress into the act of limiting women's reproductive rights.
Women's Stories Burst Out
When Roe legalized abortion based on the right-to-privacy precedent of Griswold v. Connecticut, which made birth control legal in 1965, the reality of abortion burst out of the closet. Women's stories - long hidden in deepest, darkest silence - poured forth until everyone knew this wasn't some aberration in the procreative chain of events but something that affected your mother, your daughter, your sister, yourself.
But today, while it's acceptable to discuss many sexual matters in explicit terms - from oral sex to teen pregnancy - not so for abortion. Just look at how women and their childbearing decisions get treated in the popular culture.
The movie "Juno" brings us a pregnant teen who gives her child up for adoption, while the tabloids offer up Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney's 16-year-old real life and really pregnant sister who opts for single motherhood.
There's also "Knocked Up," about a woman with an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy. After its strong box office run the movie is near the top of DVD rentals, with nary a mention of abortion except as a verboten subject, a less than savory choice that the pregnant protagonists wouldn't deign to consider.
While the popular media blasts us with "Juno," Jamie Lynn and "Knocked Up," stories other women tell me in increasingly hushed tones - in e-mails, letters, chance meetings at the grocery store, after my speeches - are missing from the discourse.
One example: "The option of legal abortion enabled my future husband and me to grow up, establish a stable relationship, and become financially and emotionally able to nurture the two beautiful children we would, in time, have."
It's often overlooked that abortion is as much part of family formation as childbearing. Women don't have abortions because they fail to value children, but because they value children so highly, they want to give birth when they can care for them well.
"I used to be against abortion, but now I realize this is about my health and I have changed my mind. I wrote to Jerry Falwell about this." Another example.
The Issue Is Justice
You never know what you will do until you're confronted with the situation. Rev. Tom Davis, whose 2005 book "Sacred Choices" documented clergy leadership to legalize abortion, believes the issue is justice. "One could not disconnect the rights of women from their reproductive rights. The right to control one's own body made all the other rights possible."
"The trauma was the unintended pregnancy, not the abortion. But I had to travel several hours to find the nearest doctor. He was forced by law to 'counsel' me to continue the pregnancy even though I had already consulted my minister, and to make me wait an extra day. I had to take three days off work; what about women who can't afford that?" A third example.
Here's my own story: I stood in Jamie Lynn Spears' shoes 50 years ago. But I married my high school sweetheart, had three children, took the birth control pill for 12 years, then opted for sterilization.
I chose to give attention to my three children, get an education, restore my health and work to supplement our modest family income.
That should have been that from a procreation point of view, but it wasn't quite. My former husband and I, too young when we married to sustain a mature relationship, eventually divorced. A few years later - 29 years ago now - I met the love of my life. We considered having a child, but we each had children who still needed our support, and although there was a chance my sterilization could be reversed and I could become pregnant, the odds were slim.
That's how I learned humility, not judgment, is in order when we look at the various decisions that women make about childbearing. Before then, I was simply oblivious to the stories behind other women's choices. Now I understand that when it comes to pregnancy and childbearing, every choice involves both sacrifice and freedom. That's the moral case for reproductive justice.
And that's why this anniversary of Roe calls for nothing less than a ringing affirmation of women's rights as human rights - rather than merely privacy rights - and a pledge to advance laws and appoint judges who assert respect for women's lives and human rights.
Only a politician who offers that is worthy of my vote.
"Single Women Flex Democratic Muscle":
http://womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3458/
"Egg Initiatives Crack Open the Case Against Women":
http://womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3425/
"Birmingham Clinic Protests Stir Haunting Memories":
http://womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3244/
The Republican Candidates' Abortion Problem
By Carole Joffe
RH Reality Check
Wednesday 16 January 2008
"I haven't sorted out the penalties ... of course there's got to be some penalties to enforce the law, whatever they may be." So spoke George H.W. Bush, in one of the major gaffes of his first presidential run in 1988, during a debate with his opponent, Michael Dukakis. Bush, who had only recently begun to trumpet his antiabortion sentiments to dubious Republican social conservatives, was responding to a question about appropriate punishment for women who would obtain illegal abortions should Roe v Wade be overturned. The next morning, after frantic late night discussions, Bush's handlers called the press for a "clarification." Bush meant to say doctors who performed abortions, not women who received them, should be jailed in such a situation.
Twenty years later, Mike Huckabee, running for the Republican nomination, makes no such missteps. With none of the discomfort that Bush I showed, Huckabee at his rallies gets the party line of the antiabortion movement right: if Roe is overturned, doctors who perform abortions should be punished, while the recipients of such abortions must be seen as "victims."
But Huckabee, a former Baptist preacher and the candidate of choice of evangelicals, is an exception in the clarity and consistency of his position on abortion. There is a long history of "evolution" on abortion from politicians in both parties. For example, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, both from Southern states, had mixed records of support for abortion early in their careers before they each went on to become staunch allies of the abortion rights movement. But in the campaign of 2008, it is mainly the Republican candidates who are squirming.
Mitt Romney's notorious flip-flops on the issue - reminiscent of another hapless Massachusetts politician, Romney was for abortion before he was against it - may ultimately be seen as a key factor that led to voter disillusion with his candidacy.
Rudy Giuliani, who is attempting the daunting task of winning a Republican nomination with a record of support for abortion and gay rights, astonished observers across the political spectrum with his nonchalance when he stated, in response to a question about his feelings were Roe to be overturned: "It'd be ok to repeal it. It would also be ok if a strict constructionist judge viewed it as precedent."
Fred Thompson, in the early stages of his campaign, first denied and then admitted that he had worked briefly as a lobbyist for an abortion rights group. The "straight-talking" John McCain has also changed his position on abortion. Several years ago, he was on record as saying reversing Roe would not be a good idea, because of the likelihood of women resorting to illegal and dangerous abortions; today, he calls for the immediate overturning of Roe.
The abortion issues in the Democratic campaign have thus far been much more low profile. To be sure, Dennis Kucinich, who for most of his political career was against abortion, suddenly became converted to a prochoice position when he first ran for president. And in the final days of the New Hampshire primary, the Clinton campaign sent out a mailing accusing Obama of not being a sufficiently reliable prochoice vote when he served in the Illinois legislature.
But in fact, the positions of the top three Democratic candidates are nearly identical on abortion. All three spoke out against the most recent Supreme Court decision on abortion, Gonzales v Carhart, announced in April 2007 - decrying the fact that for the first time the Court held that an exception to protect the health of a woman was not constitutionally necessary in abortion legislation. But since Gonzales also upheld a ban on intact Dilation and Extraction, a rarely used method of performing certain second trimester abortions - sensationalized by opponents as "partial birth abortions" - it is certain that antiabortion forces will target whoever becomes the Democratic nominee for his or her statement on that case.
So how big a role will abortion play in the upcoming election? An economy in recession, not to mention ongoing wars in two fronts, presumably will command far more attention than abortion. But abortion plays too central a role in American politics to disappear altogether as an issue. In particular, if Mike Huckabee is the nominee (or, more likely, the vice presidential candidate), then abortion will inevitably have a higher profile. Even if Huckabee is not on the ticket, if either McCain or Giuliani becomes the presidential nominees, he will likely choose a running mate who can energize the Religious Right segment of the party - and that means talking about abortion.
What can the Democrats do? This time around, the Democratic candidates have an excellent opportunity to do more than be defensive about their support for abortion, especially the controversy around later abortions, which account for a tiny proportion of all abortions performed in the U.S.(90% of all abortions occur within the first ten weeks of pregnancy and less than 2% occur after 20 weeks).
The record of the Bush presidency with regard to sexual and reproductive policies is so egregious, because of the relentless quest to please the Religious Right, that there is a real opening to expose the extent to which the Republican party is out of step with mainstream values of the American electorate.
If baited about "partial birth abortions," here is how a nominee might respond. "Leading medical organizations have testified that sometimes this banned method is the safest one for the woman - and I want women to have access to the safest procedure possible. But this infrequently used procedure is not the main issue here. I want to know if my opponent, should he be president, will continue to support abstinence only sex education - on which our government has wasted over a billion dollars to date, and which has repeatedly been shown to be ineffective. I want to know if my opponent, on record as opposing abortions, will continue George Bush's policy of cutting funding for family planning programs? I want to know if my opponent agrees with the Bush policy of posting incorrect information about condom effectiveness and other reproductive health issues on government websites? I want to know if my opponent will continue with the Bush policy of making one third of all U.S. HIV/AIDS assistance funds in the developing world go to abstinence programs - a policy decried by public health experts? And since we are talking about reproductive issues, why is my opponent on record as supporting George Bush's veto of the expansion of S-Chip - that wonderful health care program for children?"
In short, abortion is best defended when it is discussed in the context of a larger vision of reproductive justice - one that speaks to the many different ways a compassionate government can help its citizens to achieve the family lives they wish for. And the woeful Bush record of the last seven years offers a perfect opportunity to present this vision.
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