Friday, Jul 25, 2008
From clinic access to anti-abortion terrorism, the next president -- whoever he is -- will have a profound effect on a woman's right to choose.
Oct 31, 2000 | You've heard it over and over these past few months. Ralph Nader supporters say there's no difference between the other two guys. Some disaffected Democrats agree. And they add that the likelihood of George W. Bush's Supreme Court appointees voting to overturn Roe vs. Wade is the only reason to vote for Vice President Al Gore. Moderate Republican and independent women desperately want to believe that Bush's successful efforts to defuse the abortion issue mean that he'll soft-pedal his opposition if he takes office.
They're all wrong.
Consider this: On a Friday night two years ago, an anti-abortion terrorist murdered Barnett Slepian, a Buffalo, N.Y., obstetrician and gynecologist, in his own home. The following Tuesday, Attorney General Janet Reno convened a meeting in her Washington office with leaders of the pro-choice movement, including Marilyn Buckham, the director of the clinic where Slepian had worked.
Buckham brought Reno a personal message from the slain doctor's widow: "This clinic must remain open," said the note. "Bart would have it no other way." After offering condolences to Slepian's colleagues and friends, Reno declared that her first priority was to ensure that the clinic continue to operate. "The buck stops here," she told the group. "Tell me what you need."
The Buffalo clinic requested two things: a strong and visible security presence at the facility itself and protection for physicians who agreed to cover for Slepian and other clinic staff deemed at risk. Reno complied immediately, dispatching federal marshals to Buffalo to guard the clinic and offer round-the-clock protection of designated individuals, including Buckham herself.
Reno took additional steps. She ordered agents and dogs from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to protect providers and advocates attending several abortion-rights conferences that took place right after the shooting. Within 10 days of the Washington meeting, she created the National Task Force on Violence Against Health Care Providers, a commission to assist local and regional law enforcement agencies investigate and prosecute attacks on clinics and people offering abortion services. And the following year the proposed White House budget included $4.5 million for physical security enhancements for abortion clinics.
Both the pro-choice and anti-abortion movements have been focused mainly on the fragility of the high court's 5-to-4 pro-Roe majority and the president's authority to name new justices. That's clearly a key issue, even though Nader casually dismissed its importance on Sunday when he told Sam Donaldson of ABC News that "even if Roe vs. Wade is reversed, that doesn't end it ... It just reverts back to the states."
But the power of the presidency over abortion is far broader. Even if Roe vs. Wade were to remain intact under a Bush administration -- and lots of people have convinced themselves that it would -- an anti-abortion president can take myriad steps to ensure that abortion will be virtually inaccessible to many American women, even if the procedure remains technically legal. It is delusional for any abortion-rights supporter to think otherwise -- or to downplay any differences between how a Bush or Gore administration might handle the issue beyond Supreme Court choices.
No president, however willing to defend abortion rights, can himself (and hopefully, one day, herself) effectively fend off every legal, medical and cultural assault of the anti-abortion movement. Only Congress, for example, can remove the ban on federal funding of abortion for poor women. But a president can do a great deal both concretely and symbolically to support the pro-choice movement through executive orders, appointments to various agencies as well as lower federal courts, legislative priorities and use of the position as a bully pulpit. Likewise, an anti-abortion president can severely undermine abortion rights and limit availability -- and could even do much to derail broad access to RU-486 despite the drug's recent and long-awaited approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
Clinton and Gore have both spoken out forcefully and consistently against anti-abortion violence. The administration has tried to blunt the excesses of anti-abortion legislation, as when the president vetoed bills barring so-called "partial-birth abortion" -- legislation that Bush has indicated he would sign eagerly. Clinton has issued executive orders granting providers far greater freedom to offer abortion services and counseling. And just last week he forced congressional Republicans to remove restrictions on whether private family-planning groups that receive federal funds can use their own money for abortion-related activities in other countries. The restrictions, however, will remain in place until Feb. 15 -- offering the next president great leeway in determining how to proceed.
A President Gore would likely continue and even expand upon those policies. A President Bush would not.
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