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Health Care
Reform
Women's Reproductory Rights: Will Bush overturn Roe v. Wade? by Sophia Barkat The Republican Congress & Presidency In the early 90s the Republicans achieved a great victory in State Courts. They were able to push for election redistricting, especially in the South, where previous election zones allowed for Democratic victories. Now, in States like Alabama, election districts that were once black majorities, were split such that black voters could no longer constitute 30% of the voting population. This redistricting move has much to do with Republican wins in the Congress in the 90s. If before, Conservatives ran as Democrats, such as Senator Shelby (AL-R) had once been, now they switched sides and went Republican – true color. The effect was a radical unseating of white democrats from the Southern States in the Congress. Not only did the Democrats see their Senators and Representatives retiring, but they also saw them change aisles. First the House and then the Senate gave way to the Republican Party. The Republican domination of the Congress has obvious effects on law-making in the US. It is most likely than not that these Republicans are no longer going to bargain with their counterpart Democrats. Once, where a Republican Congress prevented Bill Clinton from having his way, and vice verse, the 109th session of the Congress, like the 108th and 107th is too reckless. Not only did we see no checks and balances, in the last two sessions we will likely see no opposition in the Congress as his cabinet nominees face the Senate Committees. Condoleeza Rice, Alberto Gonzalez, and Bush’s wild-card replacements for Supreme Court and Federal Court Justices, are all likely to be approved. The Effect on Women's Reproductory Rights With President Bush re-elected, this makes the legislative process so much easier for Republicans who are opposed to Abortion. Hands down, the Republicans passed an Act in 2003 to ban partial-birth abortions. With the country focused on the US war in Iraq, the Anti-Abortion Act got little attention in the media. Distracted by the war and inadequately informed by the corporate media, women in the country failed to protest enough, though abortion groups voiced outrage. NARAL, a pro-choice group reports, "Federally, Congress has banned access to abortion for virtually every woman who depends on the federal government for her health care, including Medicaid recipients, women in the military and military dependents stationed overseas, women in federal prisons, Native American women, federal employees, and even Peace Corps volunteers. Anti-choice lawmakers have used the appropriations process to restrict access to reproductive health care, here and abroad, at virtually every turn. In State legislatures across the country the same is being promoted. In 2004, States enacted 29 new anti-choice measures. The cumulative effect of enacted anti-choice legislation is staggering: more than 400 anti-choice measures have been enacted since 1995." (See http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/) Federal Courts At one point it seemed as though the nation would have to endorse this new law. However, as Abortion Access, another pro-choice group, reports, "On September 8, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Kopf of Nebraska ruled that a federal law banning intact dilation and extraction, or "partial-birth" abortion, is unconstitutional, because it does not include an exemption to protect a woman’s health. Kopf is the third federal judge to strike down the ban. Earlier in 2004, federal judges in San Francisco and New York ruled, in separate cases, that the federal ban passed by Congress and signed by President George Bush in 2003 violates the constitutional rights of women as established in the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar abortion ban in Stenberg v. Carhart, when it found that Nebraska's so-called "partial birth abortion" law impermissibly endangered a woman's health. The Court also found in Carhart that the Nebraska law was too broad, extending not simply to "late-term" abortions, as described by advocates of the ban, but to many second-trimester abortion procedures." Abortion Access reports, "Led by Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Department of Justice has already filed an appeal of the decision in San Francisco. Following the Nebraska ruling, the Department of Justice issued a statement indicating that President Bush had pledged that the executive branch will vigorously defend this law. The legal battle over this law is likely to continue on to the federal circuit courts of appeals, and the future of the ban may depend ultimately on the U.S. Supreme Court." Supreme & Federal Court Appointments Recently sworn-in President, George Bush, is determined to fill future vacancies in the Supreme Court, as well as appoint judges to federal district and circuit courts. Recent Supreme Court decisions in support of reproductive rights have been upheld by a slim majority of 5-4. With the opposition arising in major States like California and New York, it is likely that Federal Court appointees will re-enforce the pro-life side where ever possible, forcing pro-choice health providers to close down in many States. This is reason for concern. NARAL is worried. With a rapid e-mail responder kit, NARAL plans to fight President Bush’s nominee for Supreme Court Justice, what with Chief Justice Rehnquist's failing health. NARAL reports, "Right now, Roe v. Wade is only supported by a razor-thin majority – and we expect three or even four Justices to retire while Bush is in office. Given President Bush’s unwavering commitment to choosing far-right nominees, and his overarching goal of overturning Roe, we have every reason to believe that any judge he nominates will oppose the right to choose. We believe he will use one of two strategies. President Bush may nominate a judge with a clear anti-choice record. But his team knows that the American majority is pro-choice, and will fight an extreme nominee. So it’s quite possible he will nominate a stealth candidate – one without a clear record on privacy and choice, but who opposes choice nonetheless, making it even more difficult to fight." (See prochoiceaction.org/) NARAL’s fears may well be true. Democrats, though outnumbered in the Senate, recently fought vehemently to oppose Bush’s nominee for John Ashcroft’s replacement, in the Department of Justice. Ashcroft, who resigned recently, along with Bush’s many prominent cabinet members, including Tom Ridge and Collin Powell, is a staunch opponent of Abortion. He’s was up and about protesting the Federal Court oppositions to the Congressional Act banning Partial Birth Abortion in 2004. In contrast, Democrats in the Senate were apt to point out that Alberto Gonzalez has no "clear" stand on many issues, like Abortion. With the Republican majority in the Senate, it’s likely Gonzalez will be appointed. Gonzalez, Bush's White House counsel and a former Texas Supreme Court justice, was narrowly approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line 10-8 vote Wednesday, Jan. 26th, 2005. With "stealth" candidates already being sneaked into the Department of Justice, NARAL’s conjecture that stealth swing candidates for the Supreme Court Justice positions, if indeed three or four Justices are likely to retire, is cause for concern to women in the US. Supreme Court Justices Federal Courts simply enforce what law the Federal Supreme Court Justices legislate. If a stealth or openly right-wing candidate is elected to the Courts, the Federal Courts are lame duck. They cannot overturn a Federal Supreme Court decision. If three or four Justices are replaced the scenario becomes very anti partial birth abortion. As it stands, in the Federal Supreme Court, Chief Justice William Rehnquist is a strong anti-choice candidate, and Bush would be replacing him most likely with a pro-life candidate. So are Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. On the flip-side, Justices Steven G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and John Paul Stevens are the three strong supporters of reproductive freedom on the court today. Swing voters on Abortion are Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David H. Souter Unless the swing voters change their position on Abortion, it is unlikely the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade will change if only Rehnquist retires early. If however, any of the swing voters were replaced in the near future, the balance might be compromised. Religion and Roe v. Wade Indeed, seeing how Bush’s voters come increasingly from the Midwestern States and the South, this well could happen. In the South, Christianity is used as an argument to stop even partial-birth abortions. Abortion and Gay Rights are a divisive issue along the Southern population. A Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade makes the Republican Party all the more confident of seats in the Congress from the South. The Southern Republicans are likely to pursue the issue, to gain more foothold in Congress. Indeed, the Southern Baptists Church, the Roman Catholic Church – all have issued anti-abortion statements, though some organizations like Catholics for Choice are for it. Frances Kissling, an activist at the Catholics for Free Choice, in an article published in Conscience magazine in 2000, points out that the Church cannot condemn abortion: 1. There is no firm position within the Catholic church on when the fetus becomes a person. This can be confirmed by reading "The History of Abortion in the Catholic Church: The Untold Story", a CFFC publication by Jane Hurst; "A Brief, Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion" by Daniel Dombrowski and Robert Deltete; the "Declaration on Procured Abortion," published by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1974) and tons of other books and articles. The preponderance of scientific, medical, sociological and philosophical writing leans strongly to the position that fetuses do not possess the characteristics most commonly cited as markers for ‘personhood’. Women, however, are clearly persons with the right to be treated as moral decision-makers. Indeed, if you take into consideration his first argument, partial-birth abortion is a form in which the health of the woman is taken into consideration. By saying that the health risk on a woman is not important, one essentially says that a woman’s life is not worth saving. Costs of Banning Abortion Life of Mother If the Religious Right support a ban on partial-birth abortions to save the life of the Child, they are forgetting about the life of the Mother. In The New York Times Op-Ed, Peggy Loonan of Life and Liberty for Women wrote an excellent article to show what might happen if partial-birth abortions became illegal. In her article, "Don't Compromise on Abortion", she says, "Over turning Roe vs. Wade or so restricting access, in any manner, as to effectively do that, only makes abortion more dangerous for women. Today, in the 21st century, should abortion become illegal, more women than before Roe, especially young women, will opt to self-abort and will place their health at great risk and many will die. Others will opt for a back-alley abortion. If lucky, these women will find an abortion provider who provides safe abortion services today, who will be willing to risk everything to go underground to provide safe abortion health care services to women. Those women will not place their health and life at great risk. Other women will find an underground "provider" who has little or no medical training and those women won't just be placing their health at risk, but more likely than not, they will lose their lives." (See lifeandlibertyforwomen.org) Indeed, the Feminist Womens’ Health Center reports regarding Abortion safety in the US under legal means: "Abortion is very safe. It is safer than giving birth and safer than receiving an injection of penicillin. Like all medical procedures, there are some risks with abortion, but the risk is comparatively minimal. Potential complications from the abortion procedure include incomplete abortion - which means the procedure needs to be repeated (a minor complication), infection - which is easily treated with antibiotics, perforation of the uterine wall - for which the treatment may be nothing, to surgical repair in a hospital, depending on the severity. Less than 1% of all abortion patients experience a major complication, such as serious pelvic infection, hemorrhage requiring a blood transfusion or unintended major surgery. The risks associated with abortion increases with the length of pregnancy. Hysterectomy is exceedingly rare. The risk of death associated with childbirth is about 10 times as high as that associated with abortion. Unless you have a complication during or after the abortion, abortion has no impact on your future ability to get pregnant or carry a pregnancy to term." (See http://www.fwhc.org/abortion/flyer.htm). In the event that more women had to choose illegal means, would safety of the 99% not be compromised? The future of the Mother & Child In the US, women have been a prominent part of the US Labor force since WWII. And yet, women who become pregnant are not adequately able to continue work. For this reason, many women prefer to abort a second, third or fourth child. Sometimes even a first, if one is likely to be a single mother, a group increasing in number in the US. And yet, there is not adequate job security in the US to allow for this. StateAction.org reports that, "Of 158 countries around the world, 130 have leave policies for mothers and fathers, of which 98 percent have paid leave. Only three - the United States, Ethiopia and Australia - provide unpaid leave." And yet, even these leaves are not guaranteed. The AFL-CIO reports, "Almost 41 million Americans are not covered by the FMLA because they work for private employers not covered under the law -- this amounts to more than 40 percent of the private sector workforce nationwide." Of those that do, the Families and Work Institute's 1998 Business Work-Life Study by Ellen Galinsky and James T. Bond reports that in the US private sector, "90% of companies provide the 12 or more weeks of job-guaranteed leave required by the FMLA. A third of companies provide 13 or more weeks of leave for maternity, and 15-16% provide 13 or more weeks of leave for paternity, adoption, and seriously ill children." (See familyleavesurvey) A three-month leave is always useful. But a child lives longer than that. Mothers who work often do not have a way to raise a child, especially not if they have some already. In fact, women are so concerned with the future of their child and their own, that the number one cause of abortion is not health risks to the mother, but the future of the woman and the child, in the US. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, reports this. (See secondlookproject.org/statistics/): Women who have had abortions cite the following reasons: Notice how abortion rate falls off as the fetus grows beyond the first 13 weeks. (These again, are legal abortion rates.) One may raise a question about this trend, however. Is it coincidental with the fact that abortion costs go up significantly after the 13th week? Or women just feel, influenced by latest science, that it is best not to have abortions beyond the first 3 months, and that pricing figures try to induce these numbers? If the price differential for the procedure were pushed up after the 13th week, one might a hastening of abortion rates in the first 13 weeks. Then again, perhaps the long-term costs of avoiding abortion – raising a child, getting fired from one’s job – as so high, that they outweigh the short-term rise. Indeed, thousands of women seem to be aborting later on – 12%. In contrast, the rate of women aborting citing rape or health-risks to mother and child was only 7%. This implies that at least 5% of late aborters did so due to economic and personal reasons. Monetary Cost Laws have not stopped women from getting Abortions on their terms. Where laws are unimaginably myopic, women have traveled world over to find what they need. In England, for e.g., the largest abortion services provider, BPAS, also notes that out of the 50,000 abortions it provides annually, approximately 4,000 of the clients travel from overseas. Many are from Ireland, where the Irish Catholic Church bans abortions, but apparently cannot prevent them. Laws in the US banning partial-birth abortions essentially would also raises the price of abortion globally, but restricting competition locally. According to the CDC, in the period since Abortion had been made legal in the US by Roe v Wade, -- 1973-2003 -- 44,670,812 abortions were performed in the United States. This is eight times what the BPAS in England face. Thus, if Roe v. Wade is overturned in the US it will only boost global abortion prices, and it is not sure how the global market will absorb the number. But this much is certain. Women seeking abortions will opt for inexpensive and riskier abortions, as Peggy Loonan points out, if they cannot pay the exorbitant prices. It is in the best interest of these women, therefore, that Roe v. Wade not be overturned. Currently, the cost of abortion in the US depends on the stage of pregnancy and which clinic is providing services. First trimester procedures run about $400-600. Second trimester procedures cost $500-5000 (See www.fwhc.org/abortion/). In England, BPAS sites the cost to be £450-680 for the first 19 weeks, or £1,200 for between 20-24 weeks, after which it is illegal (See under Prices in bpas.org/). Insurance Coverage In the US, many insurance plans cover abortion. Some state Medicaid programs cover it. The clinic can help by verifying coverage and other paperwork. It may not be necessary to obtain a referral from a primary care physician before setting up an abortion appointment (See http://www.fwhc.org/abortion/flyer.htm). If partial-birth abortions are made illegal, no US insurance company will be able to cover Americans who wish to travel abroad for abortions. This is bad news for women, especially in the face of higher prices. But it’s savings for insurance companies. Citing Alan Guttmacher Institute figures, if about 1.3 million women have legal abortions in the US and the cost of abortions is X where: X = ($500 on average for first 13 weeks when 1.13 million women got abortions) + ( $3000 on average for the next 13 weeks when 0.16 million women got abortions) = $565 million + $480 million = $1.045 billion Thus, the insurance industry could well end up spending $1.045 billion dollars every year if abortion is not banned. Considering the enormous savings – more than $1 billion -- the insurance industry gave the Republican Party election campaigns about $125 million between 1990-2004. It was about $80 million to the Democratic Party campaigns. (See opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=F09). In contrast to the insurance industry, Pro-life lobbies gave $4.6 million to the Republican campaigns (See opensecrets.org). Pro-choice lobbies gave about $10 million to Democrats. (See opensecrets.org). One would expect the Pro-Life lobby to spending much more. Why are they not? Is it because most of their money comes from the Insurance Industry anyway? What America Thinks PoliticalDonors.com states that the Pro-life lobby raised their money from these donors: (See http://www.politicaldonors.us/pl.html) Demographics: Though the pro-life lobby seems predominantly male, the support for restricted abortion is much higher in the US. In fact, the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life states: (See http://www.mccl.org/abortion_statistics.htm) 61% say abortion should be legal only in a few circumstances (42%), or illegal in all circumstances (18%). Gallup Poll, May 2003 Thus, it seems that most Americans would not allow women to get an abortion at will. Conclusion Even if one objects to a woman’s right to destroy a fetus, one must not forget that legalizing abortions is a way to make it safer for women. Black-markets have always prevailed in the US when any items were banned. The failure of the drug-war, the Prohibitionist Act banning alcohol, all show that people with money and with a need find a way. With Abortion the story is the same. Laws that prohibit raise risks to the mother. Instead they can make sure that dangerous abortions are not allowed – that the fetus is not aborted at a mature state. If anything, one must not forget the savings to the insurance industry every year if abortion is made illegal. Could it be the elusive force behind the pro-life debate in America, hidden behind a seemingly unfunded Pro-life lobby? And one must not forget a point overlooked -- a woman’s right to dictate what happens to her body. If property rights include what happens to one’s person, then, the Constitution must protect a woman’s right to dictate what happens to her body. It is thus, that Roe v. Wade protects women’s rights to abort. It would seem ridiculous to ensure a woman’s property – her car, house – and yet not protect her body and her future. About the Author(s): See under Our Contributors to find out about the Author(s) of this article. |
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