Described by the National Organisation of Women as a “virtual tidal wave of anti-abortion and anti-contraception legislation”, women in the US are facing what is perhaps the greatest threat to their reproductive rights since abortion first became legal.
Bush’s proclamation of “National Sanctity of Human Life Day”, in which he compared abortion to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, was a clear signal to the anti-abortion lobby that they could expect support from the highest levels of government.
Whilst the Christian right has continually failed to overturn the Roe vs. Wade ruling of 1973, which established the legality of abortion in the US, the last five years have witnessed a renewed and highly organised attack on a woman’s right to choose.
Calls to ban abortion are no longer the reserve of a lunatic fringe, but backed by a deliberate, well co-ordinated and well financed movement. Tens of millions of dollars are spent on researching and drafting restrictive bills, paying public relations firms to influence opinion and lobby legislators, and supporting anti-abortion candidates.
Bush has supported attempts to over-turn the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the “abortion pill” mifepristine, which offers a safe and non-surgical solution to unplanned pregnancy. His administration cut $34 million of funding from the United Nations Population Fund because it provided access to reproductive health care and education.
In April 2004 Bush signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act which established that an embryo could be considered as a separate victim in federal crimes. Cynically presented as aiming to protect pregnant women from violence, this Act was in fact an attempt to redefine the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection of the law to “persons”, to include an embryo or foetus as such. It thus sets a collision course with the Roe vs. Wade ruling that a foetus could not be considered a “person” in this sense, opening up the way for future and potentially more fatal challenges.
At state level, restrictions are being placed not just on access to abortion, but also on the availability of the most basic contraceptive advice and services. In 2003, 45 new measures were adopted across states, in particular preventing women under the age of 18 from receiving advice and contraception from family planning clinics. Biased counselling and mandatory delays in receiving an abortion were also introduced.
In Texas abortion providers must now present women with a pamphlet entitled “women’s right to know” which contains unscientific and inaccurate information about the (false) link between abortion and breast cancer.
The atmosphere of intimidation was increased recently by a law that demands that the driver’s license or other personal identification documents of a woman receiving an abortion be photocopied and kept on file by the clinic.
These attacks on a woman’s right to choose should not, however, be attributed solely to the bogeyman of George W Bush.
It is because there is so little to choose between the two parties of big business that politicians of both sides have attempted to play the election in terms of “moral issues”. Kerry was just as eager as his opponent to present himself to the electorate as a man of strong religious faith, whilst Bush went so far as to open communications with the Pope in a bid to increase the electoral fruits of his anti-abortion views.
In the 2004 election 9.5 million new voters supported Bush, most of whom had been mobilised by the Evangelical churches who had set up voter registration booths in their lobbies.
It is the poverty of American politics at large that has enabled religious extremists to occupy such an influential position. Offered the choice between Republican and Democrat, it is disappointing, but not surprising, that many have simply voted for whoever their pastor told them to.
Moreover, that the new legislation will have most detrimental effect in economically deprived and immigrant communities is the result of an almost total lack of free health care available in the US, a situation which neither party has ever seriously attempted to change.
By Laura Schwartz
