Bipartisan Statements Embolden Anti-Abortion Forces

by Christine Marie / November 2009

HARTFORD, Conn.—On Oct. 25, women awoke to read that opponents of abortion were preparing an auction on eBay to raise funds for Scott Roeder, the man charged with the murder of later-term-abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. While eBay eventually canceled the auction, the incident reveals the confidence that the perpetrators of extra-legal violence against abortion clinics and doctors currently feel.

This confidence flows not only from the unrelenting press attention to the right-wing disruptions of health-care reform rallies and the extreme right’s ability to mobilize tens of thousands of rightists Washington, D.C., on Sept. 12 but from the bipartisan misuse of abortion as a political football in the health-care debate.

A few days before the House was scheduled to consider a merged health-care bill, anti-abortion Democratic Congresspersons, led by Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan, threatened to hold up a vote on rules. In return for allowing the bill to come to the floor, they demanded the insertion of a Hyde Amendment-type clause that prohibited the use of taxpayer funds for abortions.

Stupak’s initiative is only one of many efforts to use the health-care debate as an arena for the dissemination of anti-abortion propaganda. As the House prepared to discuss a bill, Conferences of Catholic Bishops from Texas and Louisiana came out supporting only legislation that banned funding of abortion.

While there have been widely disseminated refutations of the assertion that current bills actually provide public monies for abortion, pro-choice advocates feel that they must continue to campaign against the introduction of amendments that might actually prohibit abortion coverage by private insurers. The cascade of anti-abortion proclamations and legislative maneuvers tied to the health-care reform debate began with the July threats of former Operation Rescue head Randall Terry, who said to a Nancy Pelosi aide: “If you force people to pay their money, there are people who will resort to acts of violence.”

More subtle but equally dangerous has been the response by Obama aides to the right-wing initiative on reproductive rights. Instead of challenging the ideologues and clearly defending women’s rights, White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs reinforced the anti-abortion hysteria permeating the discourse in Congress by pointing to the reactionary Hyde Amendment as an obstacle to the public funding of abortion.

Combined with Obama’s Notre Dame proclamation that he supported the “right” of medical personnel to refuse to perform abortions, his administration’s positive referencing of the Hyde Amendment is surely a big disappointment to the women who looked to his presidency to defend and expand choice. And the lack of a vigorous public defense of abortion has resulted in a drop in public support for legal abortion. In an April 2009 poll, Pew Research found that only 46% say that they think that abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

In Connecticut, the Hartford GYN health clinic was evacuated on Oct. 29 when a suspicious package was found at the front gate, the location of an anti-abortion prayer vigil connected with the national “40 Days for Life” campaign. The bomb threat has intensified building efforts for a Nov. 8 Speak-Out for Reproductive Rights that is to be held at the Vernon Center at Trinity College in that city.

Speakers at the speak-out will include Gretchen Raffa, a community organizer for Planned Parenthood; Jillian Gilchrest, the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice CT; Susan Campbell, a journalist for the Hartford Courant and author of “Dating Jesus”; Joan Chrisler, a member of the CT-NOW Board of Directors; Clair Kaplan, a Nurse Practitioner and Assistant Professor at Yale University; Regina Dyton, a community activist; Abbey Willis, the CT Workers Solidarity Alliance; and Alissa De Rosa of CT Socialist Action.

Testimony from those victimized by reactionary abortion legislation and other restrictions of reproductive rights will complete the program. Endorsers include CT NARAL, NOW, Planned Parenthood, the Women and Gender Resource Action Center of Trinity College, the National Council of Jewish Women-CT, FADGE (Feminism, Autonomy, Diversity, and Gender Expression) Fest Committee, CT Coalition for Choice, UCONN Women’s Center, and the CT ANSWER Coalition.

Organizers hope that the speak-out will lead to a larger public action in January around the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in 1973.