Whatever happened to the Freedom of Choice Act?
1992Carole Seligman 1992-08Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 5 →
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The story of the Freedom of Choice Act of 1992 vividly illustrates the danger entailed in linking the fate of the pro-choice movement to the Democratic Party.
Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would hear the case of the Pennsylvania abortion restrictions last year, the pro-choice movement leadership COMMENTARY assumed, and acted on the assumption, that the Supreme Court would void Roe v. Wade.
Because they expected that abortion would soon be illegal, the leadership of the abortion rights organizations (such as Planned Parenthood, National Abortion Rights Action League, NOW, and others) began to campaign for legislation—the Freedom of Choice Act. The announced intention of this bill was to enshrine the principles of Roe in law.
The argument went something like this: The Supreme Court will not act to protect women's fundamental rights, so Congress must do it—by making the 1973 Roe decision the law of the land.
Some groups realized early on that Congress would not pass a law that really put Roe on the books, that is, preventing state anti-abortion laws. Some warned that women just might have to compromise in order to get such a piece of legislation passed. The compromises some of the pro-choice leadership were prepared to make included abrogating the rights of teenaged women to obtain abortions without parental consent.
While the negotiations on the wording of the Freedom of Choice Act were going on, and more and more restrictions were being added by Congressional sponsors of the bill, another compromise was in the works. The Democratic Party was promising abortion rights later, in exchange for support and endorsement now, for the Democratic Party ticket—Clinton, Gore, and others. Unfortunately, the women's movement leadership fell— hook, line, and sinker—for this false promise.
Meanwhile, restrictions have been added to the Freedom of Choice Act, and everyone now admits that Congress won't pass it during this session after all. And now the pro-choice and women's movements are completely mired in electoral work for the Democrats. The rationale seems to be that electing more pro-choice Democrats to Congress will assure passage of a pro-choice bill that will be veto-proof sometime in the future.
But this is illusory. There is no such thing as a vetoproof Congress when it comes to the interests of the ruling rich.
The labor movement has something to say about the campaign to elect a "veto-proof" Congress. In 1976, while supporting Jimmy Carter, they were able to elect the majority they thought they needed for a "veto-proof Congress." But they still lost on pro-labor legislation because this so-called "majority" stabbed them in the back. In short, they were betrayed by their "friends."
Are American women condemned to repeat the same erroneous, self-defeating strategy?
Consider this: Presidential candidate Clinton is already on record in Arkansas in support of the very restrictions that are now being added to the Freedom of Choice Act of 1992. What can this mean for a principled pro-choice bill after the election? It doesn't look good.
How to get out of this mess? The women's movement must have an independent strategy to win reproductive rights. The movement needs to stay in the streets and deny support to any candidates of either of the two bigbusiness parties. The only time these parties even pretend to care about women is election time. The rest of the time they act against the rights of women, oppressed minorities, and working people as a whole.
The death of the Equal Rights Amendment should have taught us this lesson years ago. So far, the story of the Freedom of Choice Act provides one more piece of damning evidence against giving support to the Democrats.