Obama is the Best Candidate for Choice

By Frances Kissling, Huffington Post. Posted February 18, 2008.

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In a recent Huffington Post article, an impressive group of women leaders examined Hillary Clinton's Senate record on reproductive rights and concluded that "Hillary Clinton is the best choice for president of the United States." The viewpoint of these leaders is important, they are all knowledgeable insiders, committed feminists and have extensive professional experience with Senator Clinton. The 10 endorsers, including Martha Burk, Cecelia Fire Thunder, Irene Natividad, Ellie Smeal, and Gloria Steinem, rightly identify themselves as "women who have spent our careers fighting to protect a woman's right to choose."

As another woman leader who has spent her career fighting to protect a woman's right to choose, with a special emphasis on protecting women's religious freedom, I see the record through a different lens. I have endorsed Senator Obama. While I believe in the nitty gritty of a day-to-day legislative agenda, there will be little difference between Clinton and Obama, I am convinced that in the larger struggle to complete the social transformation promised by Roe, Obama's instincts and values will bring us closer to that transformation.

There is no doubt that not even the most anorectic model could slip through the "space" between Obama and Clinton on some major choice issues. Both will nominate Supreme Court justices who support Roe; both will lift the global gag rule within days of taking office with a coterie of choice leaders standing behind them: and UNFPA can expect that its funding will be restored as both will certify that the agency is not involved in coercive programs in China. The Clinton endorsers rightly point to Clinton's leadership role in the Senate on over the counter availability of emergency contraception and expanded support for Title X and Medicaid family planning funds, but does anyone expect that Senator Obama would not be equally supportive?

Of course, Obama enters the arena with a shorter record and on some of the more controversial reproductive health issues, we don't know what he would do or how he would use his office to advocate for women's reproductive rights. I suspect that in some areas he may fall short and we will need to work hard to prevent that. I also more than suspect, based on her record as a Senator and the record of the Clinton administration, that there are a number of areas where Senator Clinton is more likely to disappoint us and I am surprised at the short memory of my friends and colleagues who are supporting Senator Clinton. While allowing for a change of heart, we need to remember those failures.

While Burk and others noted in their letter of support Senator Clinton's leadership on Medicaid family planning funding, they studiously ignored the question of whether the Senator has led efforts to restore Medicaid funding for abortions. She has not. In fact, in the last years of his presidency it was Bill Clinton who signed into law a permanent Hyde Amendment that prohibits the use of federal Medicaid funds for abortion, a presidential first. We might have expected that the Senator with eight years in the Senate who our colleagues tell us is "the one candidate whose leadership on this issue is unparalleled" and who is considered one of the best across the aisle players might have tried to overturn that Amendment and shown a stronger commitment to poor and low income women than we saw in Senator Clinton.

Another controversial issue that went unmentioned was the question of whether the health care plan of Senator Clinton will give religious organizations the right to refuse to provide services they consider "immoral" -- emergency contraception, voluntary sterilization, condoms to prevent HIV, and assisted reproduction come to mind. Will the Clinton plan require abortion coverage? Some of us still remember the battles we had with Senator Clinton when as First Lady and health care reform honcho she was at first unwilling to include abortion as a mandated service. To the end the Clinton health care reform plan included the broadest right of refusal to provide services ever introduced in federal legislation. It would have allowed any provider, religious or not, to refuse to provide any service they deemed immoral and still participate in the plan and reap the benefits of participation. Has Senator Clinton changed her mind on these issues? It is perfectly plausible that she has, but it is the responsibility of reproductive health and women's rights advocates to secure those commitments now, not simply trust that the woman they know and love will do the right thing if elected.

See more stories tagged with: pro-choice, catholic, barack obama, hillary clinton, reproductive justice

Frances Kissling was a longtime president of Catholics for a Free Choice (www.catholicsforchoice.org).

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