Abortion under attack
USA
* and reaffirmed the central tenet of Roe v.
Wade, that the state cannot outlaw abortion before the fetus becomes capable of independent life (the 'viability' test). However in 1992 the court
Although the religious right has failed to recriminalise abortion, they have gradually succeeded in limiting women's access to information and medical procedures. Dianne Feeley reports. Four years after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision, Roe v. Wade, which legalised abortion, conservative politicians, led by Congressman Henry Hyde (R), denied funding for abortions to women on welfare, except in cases of rape and incest.
In a country where health care is just another commodity, the idea that women of all incomes should have the right to abortion seemed utopian.
Access to abortion is blocked in a number of ways. State laws impose a waiting period, prohibit teenagers from obtaining abortions without their parents' consent, and force women to listen to anti-abortion propaganda disguised as "counselling"
In some states, the clinics, (which perform most abortions) must keep absurdly detailed records, or pay prohibitively high insurance premiums. Abortions are impossible to obtain in more than 80% of all U.S. counties.
Most recently the right has attempted to prevent federal approval of RU486, an abortion pill, often used as a "morning after" solution to contraceptive failure. 16 International Viewpoint #309 March 1999
Conservatives have also tried to ban late-term abortions. They have focused their campaigns on the dilation and extraction method of abortion. It is used late in a pregnancy when the woman's life or health is in danger, or when an extremely severe fetal abnormality has been discovered. Less than 0.04% of all U.S. abortions actually involve dilation and extraction.
Each year a couple of hundred bills seeking to limit access to abortion are introduced into state legislatures and several dozen into the U.S. Congress. The last Congress (the 105th) passed fifty-three reproductive rights measures, thirty-nine of which restricted access to services. These included banning abortions in U.S. military hospitals, denying funding abortions for women in prison and eliminating abortion coverage in federal employees' health plans. Congress also provided $US17.7 million for an Adolescent Family Life programme advocating sexual abstinence for teenagers.
In 1989 and 1992 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on various anti-abortion laws loosened its rulings, by declaring that restrictive legislation which didn't place "undue burden" on women is constitutionally acceptable.
In addition to the myriad of state and federal legislation that restricts abortion, the medical establishment has always avoided implementing the law. Most U.S.hospitals have never performed abortions and medical schools don't train physicians in the procedure. The majority of physicians who perform abortion are older people - their commitment to performing abortions is grounded in their memory of what it was like tor women when abortion was illegal. Sexual health
Despite all the limitations that have been imposed, the U.S. rate of abortion remains high. There were 1.4 million abortions in 1994, 24 per 1,000 women of childbearing age. That is significantly higher than other industrialised country.
The high abortion rate is directly related to the unavailability of birth control. The rate of teenage pregnancy is also high, with teenagers obtaining 22% of all abortions and delivering 13% of the babies. Even in the age of AIDS, sex education in the schools is highly contested, and information about birth control methods and services is inconsistent.
Many health plans don't cover contraceptive services and tor many poor women the cost of birth control is beyond their reach. 10% of all sexually active women don't use birth control and this group accounts for more than half of all unplanned pregnancies.
Two-thirds of the women having abortions intend to have children in the future, 55% are younger than 25 and 63% are unmarried. White women obtain 61% of the abortions, but Black women are nearly three times as likely to have abortions as whites and Latinas are twice
The anti-choice lobby concludes that the problem is too much sexual freedom. The pro-choice movement interprets this data as illustrating how vulnerable women of colour and young women are, and the need for a support system allowing them to make meaningful reproduc-
In October 1997 the federal government began a five-year plan for dealing with teen-age pregnancy, earmarking $850 million for teaching abstinence. As part of the welfare law, the program must teach that "sexual activity outside of... marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects." It was enthusiastically signed by President Clinton, somewhat of an expert in the
The "Just Say 'No!'" campaign is piously supported by most politicians from President Clinton on down but no research suggests that such "education"
Programs that support teenage mothers are also under attack. These include prenatal care, child-care centres in high schools and parenting classes. Critics contend that such programs send the message that "it's okay for high school women to have babies.
Abortion plays a contradictory role for the Republican right wing. It is a central issue in mobilising their core constituents, but on the other hand it alienates them from the majority of the electorate, which remains pro-choice.
With the right determined to push on against all odds, feminists tend to support those who veto the right's legislation. For example, women and Blacks, more than any other constituencies, have stood by Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky/imThe war on clinics...
Between 1992 and 1996 the number of facilities providing abortions dropped 14%, to 2,042. This is primarily due to the war that is being conducted on
Three physicians and four clinic workers have been killed in the last five years and another seventeen wounded. But this is the tip of the iceberg: the right wing has tracked the license plates of cars parked at clinics, confronted clinic patients with "Operation Rescue" teams and set up phony clinics to confuse those
Those supporting a woman's right to reproductive freedom have counterdemonstrated, organised pro-choice escorts of clinic patients, exposed the right-wing's clinics and sought legal
The anti-abortion highwater mark occurred in 1992, when 1,107 acts of serious violence (bombing, arson, invasion, vandalism, chemical contamination) were unleashed against the community-based clinics where more than two-thirds of all U.S. abortions are performed. ...provokes popular revulsion
Things changed on March 10, 1993, when Dr. David Gunn was murdered in front of a Pensacola, Florida clinic. Later that year Dr. John Britton and James Barrett were shot and killed in front of another clinic in the same city. Pro-choice demonstrations and memorial services indicated public revulsion to these
As a result, Congress passed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE), which imposed a prison fine of up to eighteen months and fines as high as $25,000 for blockading clinics, damaging clinic property or harassing clinic patients and staff. (It attempted to draw a fine line between protest and harassment, with both civil liberties organisations and women's groups involved in refining the
The passage of this law and the National Organisation of Women's successful suing of Randall Terry, Operation Rescue's guru, has diminished the right's mass demonstrations and prayer vigils in
According to the National Abortion Federation, in 1993 there were 66 blockades, 133 acts of vandalism and 188 cases of medical staff being stalked. Over 1,200 protesters were arrested. By the first four months of 1994, right-wing activity outside clinics declined significantly: 16 blockades, 108 arrests, 24 acts of vandalism and four cases of stalking. But the intimidation continues
But the attacks against clinics and medical personnel have not stopped. In January 1998 a bombing ot an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama kılled a security guard and seriously injured a nurse. In October 1998 Dr. Barnett Slepian was shot and killed by a sniper's bullet fired through the kitchen window of his home in a suburb of Buffalo, New York. (This murder fits a pattern of four earlier attacks on physicians who performed abortions in New York and Canada.)
What is "new" in the right wing's arsenal is an Internet site (the "Nuremberg Files") that invites readers to send in photographs, names, addresses and personal details including the names and ages of their children) about abortion providers. It lists over 225 doctors and hundreds of others associated with reproductive services and advocacy. Shortly after Slepian's murder a red line was drawn through his name.
The site was set up by Neal Horsley, who declared that "the most accurate name for legalised abortion is war." In addition to the lists, the site includes a section called "Save the Babies" by B Lokey, who declares that *Even homicide Is necessary to protect human life" and a lengthy statement entitled "Why I Shot an Abortionist" by Paul J. Hill, who was convicted of murdering Dr. John Britton and his escort, James Barrett. Taking the "antis" to court
Currently a trial underway in Portland, Oregon seeks $200 million in damages under the federal law that prohibits force or threats of force against providers ot reproductive heath services. It seeks a declaration that the wed sile and various "wanted" posters are illegal
The civil suit names the American Coalition of Life Activists, which was originally listed as a sponsor of the web site, as well as the Portland-based Advocates for Life Ministries and a dozen prominent members of the anti-abortion movement, including Andrew Burnett and Michael Bray.
Burnett is one of the founders of Operation Rescue and the American Coalition of Life Activists. Bray served four years in prison a decade ago for setting fires to clinics and is the author of A Time to Kill, a book that justifies the killing of abortion providers.
The plaintiffs in the case - the Portland chapter of Planned Parenthood, the Portland Feminist Women's Health Center and five physicians--must show that even through the materials did not specifically threaten violence, they were "intended to be threatening" and were perceived to be so in the climate of fear under which physicians who perform abortions live.
Twenty-six years after abortion has legalised, most doctors who perform abortions wear bulletproof vests to the clinic, vary their route to work and attempt to shield their children from possible harm.
Abortion remains legal and available to those who can get to a city and have the funds to obtain one. Almost a million and a half women obtained an abortion in 1998, and almost forty million women have obtained legal abortions since Roe v. Wade. But given the level of ambivalence about sexuality and women's independence, the war over abortion in the United States will continue. * Sources: The Alan Guttmacher Institute and the National Abortion Federation. This article was written for the US magazine Against the Currents
International Viewpoint #309 March 1999 17
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