Every year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I wonder if this will be its last. Roe, decided in 1973, overturned the states' criminal abortion laws as a violation of a citizen’s right to privacy. For 30 years the right wing has made the overturn of Roe one if its top priorities. The political goal of the right wing is to get Justices on the Supreme Court who will overturn the decision.
The election of George W. Bush combined with a Republican-controlled Senate and House gives the right wing the chance they have been waiting for. Some of the Justices who support Roe are not in the best of health and may step down from the court, leaving a vacancy for President Bush and the Senate to fill. In a political sense, all that stands between the President and Senate doing this is the Democratic minority which could threaten a filibuster, which would take 60 votes out of 100 to defeat. The Republicans only have 51 votes in the Senate. The issue is whether the pro-choice Democrats have the political courage to make this stand.
It is up to the American people to give them this courage. And to give similar courage to the few pro-choice Republicans to buck their party and vote against a justice who will not commit to upholding Roe. This is an issue that crosses party lines, demographics, race, economic status and gender. There are few easy ways to predict how a person feels about the issue. One of the things we do know is that public opinion hasn’t changed significantly in the 30 years since Roe. Americans are generally in favor of choice as a matter of principle, but want tighter restrictions on access to abortion. Most want Roe preserved in principle, but only a minority wants abortion legal for any reason a woman chooses. In general, the American public is pro-choice and anti-abortion. I believe that most Americans want abortion legal for rape and for incest, and would want it accessible to a member of their family if needed. This is not something the average American will admit to and it is not something that they base their vote on.
This climate is not a ready recipe for giving the U.S. Senate the courage to stand up to anti-choice Justices nominated to the Supreme Court. The pro-choice movement has tried to humanize abortion by having doctors and patients talk about abortion when it was criminal and about the horrible injuries and deaths to women. This has been to no avail. The pro-choice movement has tried to place abortion within the larger context of human freedom and personal privacy and limited government, again to little or no avail. There is some evidence that television advertisements stressing these points did heighten voter awareness of the issue and the politicians’ stance on it, but there is no evidence that this changed votes or elections, though perhaps it did.
This is to say that efforts to promote dialogue about abortion in a human and rights context must continue, with more funding and more outreach. There are only two rules in politics: get elected and then get re-elected. Politicians will respond to broad-based movements in American society. They also respond to money and votes, even if from a minority. Properly framed, the abortion issue is a winning issue for the pro-choice side. This has been repeatedly demonstrated when there have been state referenda on abortion restrictions, virtually all of which have been rejected by the voters.
We at the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Western Hemisphere Region believe that the legality of abortion is an essential component of elevating the status and health of women. A woman cannot participate in the civic and economic life of her nation unless she is free to decide whether and when to have children. This includes unbiased information on all her pregnancy prevention options as well as her pregnancy termination options. It includes sexuality education information and it includes pre-natal care. It includes information about sexually transmitted diseases and programs to combat gender-based violence. It means including men as partners in a couple’s life planning.
The United States under Roe is a beacon of liberty for women. Women in the U.S. can control their fertility and participate in the life of the nation. Turning back the clock and criminalizing abortion is a bad example for the world and cruel to women. It is up to the American people to stop it.
Alex Sanger
1/15/03
