Roe v. Wade 38th Anniversary: A Time for Celebration - and Commitment
by Merle Hoffman
OnTheIssuesMag: January 10, 2011
As we celebrate the 38th anniversary on Jan 22nd of the Supreme Court's Roe
v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide, this day must also signal a
commitment to the future - to protect and advance women's reproductive
freedom despite the challenges and risks.
This year, 2011, also marks the 40th anniversary of Choices Women's Medical
Center, which I founded shortly after New York State legalized abortion in
April of 1970. Before there was Roe, there was Choices, and the history of
the two are intertwined. I will never forget the first woman who came to
Choices. She was from New Jersey, a state where abortion was still illegal.
She was young, married with one child, but having another child at that time
was financially impossible for her. Since that day so many years ago,
Choices has been there for hundreds of thousands of women assisting them in
what is one of the most difficult and profound decisions OF THEIR LIVES.
While Roe established abortion as a legal right for women, current laws in
many states mean women still have to cross state lines or face other
restrictions to secure abortions.
This month, Guttmacher Institute released a new study revealing that
abortion providers have reported a dramatic increase in harassment - from 82
percent in 2000 to 89 percent in 2008. In May 2009 Dr. George Tiller, one of
the few doctors in the country who provided later term abortions - and whose
dedicated service was guided by his slogan, "Trust Women" - was gunned down
in a cold-blooded assassination. Today, we see an emboldened right-wing
assault in legislatures as well as at clinic doors.
And where are our nation's leaders when it has taken nearly two years after
Dr. Tiller's murder to begin a federal investigation into a potential larger
conspiracy around his death? Where is justice when a pharmacist in Idaho is
allowed to refuse a patient potentially life-saving anti-bleeding medication
because she may have had an abortion?
The attack by some religious institutions continues as well, including
revoking the Catholic status of a hospital for giving an abortion that saved
a woman's life. In the meantime, religious leaders gathered in New York
recently to strategize to decrease the abortion rate - not by increasing
access to comprehensive sex education and birth control, but by decreasing
access to choice and publicly shaming those who had an abortion.
While there have been some victories to celebrate in the past year, like
Operation Rescue's "Flip" Benham's conviction for his "wanted" posters
targeting abortion providers, or Alaska's recent strikedown of a ballot
proposal to ban abortion as unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade, these wins
are still few and far between.
And now, with a new slew of Republicans entering Congress and a
GOP-controlled House, it is looking increasingly ominous. The new Speaker of
the House, John Boehner, well-known for his extreme anti-abortion views, has
underscored his sentiments by meeting with the infamous Randall Terry, one
of the originators of clinic blockades that the NY Pro-Choice Coalition and
I organized against in 1988 when "Operation Rescue" came to NYC. Then
there's anti-choice Republican Rep. Joe Pitts, the new Chairman of the
Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, surely eager to restrict
abortion access even more than now. With 600 bills introduced last year to
restrict reproductive health care and rights, how many are on the horizon
for 2011? Even one more would be too many!
On this anniversary, we commemorate those heroes like my dear colleague
George Tiller whose legacies remain to inspire everyone who cares about
women's lives. Sadly, we also enter 2011 without abortion providers Susan
Hill and Robin "Rocket Woman" Rothrock. At the same time, we honor the many
providers who continue to assist women with great bravery, perseverance and
love.
On this anniversary, we celebrate Roe v. Wade and rededicate ourselves to
meet the challenges ahead, to protect women's lives and the providers who
serve them - whether on the streets, at the clinics or in the legislative
chambers. As I said in an editorial in the Lines in the Sand edition of On
the Issues Magazine:
Our bodies are lines in the sand. Each one of us proclaims that the power
of the state stops at our skin when we lay our bodies down for an abortion,
saying, with that action, that it is we who will decide when and whether to
bear children. Or when we leave a violent relationship. Or when we resist
and when we take the right to sexual pleasure. And when we declare that we
must live in freedom.
When you draw a line in the sand, you have got to be prepared to defend
it, to take risks and embrace challenges. That, too, calls upon the body, as
well as the body politick.
***
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/22/opinion/22herbert.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212
The Loss of a Good Man
By Bob Herbert
NY Times Op-Ed: January 22, 2011
It was like reading fiction. Scott Stossel, in his book, "Sarge: The Life
and Times of Sargent Shriver," described a harrowing World War II sea battle
that erupted off Guadalcanal on the night of Nov. 14, 1942:
"The foremast was hit. Electrical fires erupted continuously, all around
Shriver. Whole gun crews were killed by flying shells. The ship began to
slow down, and more Japanese rounds ripped across the deck, killing an
officer in the radar plotting room. Three rounds exploded in another battle
station, killing a half dozen more men. Steam lines were severed, and the
hot, hissing steam scalded numerous sailors. Ladders between decks got
knocked out, making putting out fires and attending to the growing scores of
wounded much more difficult. Shriver himself was wounded when metal shrapnel
from an explosion lodged itself in his shoulder, a wound for which he was
later to be awarded a Purple Heart."
It was such a different time, an era when it was considered shameful for men
to run and hide when their nation was at war. Now we send other people's
children off to war willy-nilly, and the rest of us go shopping. (At least
until someone steeped in the business philosophy of Neutron Jack Welch takes
our jobs away.)
R. Sargent Shriver, one of America's great good men, died this week at the
age of 95. He was best known as the brother-in-law of John F. Kennedy.
Married for 56 years to Kennedy's sister, Eunice, who died in 2009, he was
also the father of Maria Shriver, the former television personality who is
married to Arnold Schwarzenegger. That Mr. Shriver was not better known for
his own extraordinary accomplishments, and for his rock-solid commitment to
the ideals that this nation ought to stand for, is not just unfortunate, but
discouraging.
He was the founding director of the Peace Corps, the signature success of
Kennedy's New Frontier. He founded Head Start, created the Job Corps and
Legal Services for the Poor, and gave us Volunteers in Service to America,
which was the domestic version of the Peace Corps. He served as president
and chairman of the Special Olympics, which was founded by Eunice Shriver.
Indefatigable and unrepentantly idealistic, Mr. Shriver may have directly
affected more people in a positive way than any American since Franklin
Delano Roosevelt.
He was the flip side of the cruelty and ugliness that has come to dominate
so much of American public life. The U.S. has once again fallen into the
hands of the forces who, rather than trying to help, would relieve the
middle class and the poor of every last shred of economic security. Not only
have millions been thrown out of work, but the squeeze is on to prevent them
from getting the safety net assistance that might cushion the awful blow of
joblessness.
Public services are being dismantled throughout the republic in the name of
austerity - school systems, libraries, police forces, transportation
services, and so on. Any talk of raising taxes on the rich is verboten.
Shared sacrifice? Not if you're wealthy.
Sargent Shriver had a different view of America - warmer, richer and more
humane. A young Bill Moyers, who joined Mr. Shriver at the Peace Corps and
eventually became its deputy director, said a crucial component of the corps
was Mr. Shriver's deep commitment to the idea of America "as a social
enterprise ... of caring and cooperative people."
Here's an example: In 1964, as leader of the Office of Economic Opportunity
in the Johnson administration, Mr. Shriver came across studies that showed
connections between poor nutrition, lower I.Q. scores and arrested social
and emotional development. He wondered whether early childhood intervention
"could have a beneficial effect on the children of poor people." Head Start
followed in incredibly short order.
Mr. Shriver was the point man, the driving force of Lyndon Johnson's war on
poverty. Between 1964 and 1968, nearly one of every three poor Americans
left the poverty rolls, the largest drop in a four-year period ever
recorded. Mr. Shriver's idealism was not of the dreamy sort. It was geared
toward concrete results.
He was also a fighter for the rights and dignity of black people and other
ethnic minorities. It was Mr. Shriver who suggested that John Kennedy,
during his campaign for the presidency, make a phone call to Coretta Scott
King, expressing his concern and offering assistance at a time when her
husband, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., had been sentenced to a
four-month prison term at hard labor for a bogus traffic-related arrest in
Georgia.
Real courage, idealism, a commitment to service and a willingness to
sacrifice - Sargent Shriver had all of that and more. In an interview
several years ago, he told me, "We made an effort during that time to find
out what was true, and what was needed by way of improvement."
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