Abortion foes have mapped a two-part strategy to chip away at reproductive rights. The plan begins with stacking the judiciary with antiabortion judges and ends with a string of state and federal legislation that puts services out of reach for many of America's most vulnerable women.
March 27, 2001 |
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| Planned Parenthood Cashes In Tamara Straus, AlterNet Just in case Bush isn't sure that a majority of women opposed his run for the presidency, he need look no further than the pot of gold planted before Planned Parenthood. In late January, LA Times columnist Patt Morrison told readers that in honor of George W's anti-abortion stance she was going to give him a special gift for President's Day: a cash gift to Planned Parenthood in his name. Good ideas tend to travel quickly. Good ideas that allow people to exercise their anger move like lightning. And so did Morrison's, flying hurly-burly around the InterNet via e-mail. Within three weeks, thanks to Morrison's ironic pledge, the nation's largest reproductive health and right organization received more than $300,000 from approximately 15,000 individuals. Typical messages sent to Bush on President's Day were as follows: "Mr. Bush, I have contributed to Planned Parenthood as a statement that you do not have the consent of the people of the United States to deny women of the US and the world the right to make our own decisions about our bodies and our beliefs." -- New York, NY "You are the current resident of the White House. Please be aware that you did not win the popular vote. Your position on a woman's right to choose is a primary reason for that fact." -- Louis Park, MN Such electronic activism proves not only that the Internet is good for something but that Planned Parenthood and other reproductive rights organizations may soon have their moment in the sun, however unfortunate the circumstances. Besides their recent monetary windfall, Planned Parenthood's latest sub-site RoevBush.com (which includes excellent information about the reinstatement of the global gag rule, RU-486 restrictions introduced in Congress and President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft's record on reproductive freedom) received more than three million hits in its first weeks of operation. The National Organization of Women (NOW), in cooperation with the Feminist Majority, Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League and other women's groups, also has declared a state of emergency to bring attention to the gathering anti-abortion forces. They will be staging a kick-off march -- an "Emergency Action for Women's Lives" -- in Washington, DC on April 22. For more information, go to: www.now.org. |
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For the first time since 1992, supporters of abortion rights are without a friend in the White House. Gone is the president who vetoed attempts to outlaw partial-birth abortion. In his place stands a commander in chief who, in one of his first official acts, moved to block U.S. funding of overseas family-planning agencies that dare to mention terminating unwanted pregnancies.
"When Congress sends me a bill against partial-birth abortion," Bush the candidate told the nation, "I will sign it into law."
Even before his inauguration, Bush tapped as attorney general John Ashcroft, a man who spent much of his public life opposing not only abortion but forms of birth control, like IUDs, that prevent a fetus from taking hold. During his confirmation, Ashcroft assured liberals Roe v. Wade is "settled law." Nobody on either side believes him.
Abortion foes have mapped a two-part strategy to chip away at reproductive rights, as a first step to doing away with them all. The plan begins with stacking the judiciary with antiabortion judges and ends with a string of state and federal legislation that puts services out of reach for many of the most vulnerable Americans. The government's message, says Cindy Pearson, director of the National Women's Health Network in Washington, is that "if you're not middle-class and a legal adult, we're going to make it harder and harder to get an abortion."
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