Abortion Rights (continued from page 7)

for abortions in cases in which the woman's life would be endangered if the pregnancy were carried to term; in instances of rape and incest (but only those reported to law enforcement or public health officials within 60 days!); or in cases in which two doctors were prepared to officially "certify" that "severe and longlasting" physical health damage would result if the woman were forced to carry the pregnancy to term.

As of this writing (mid-February 1979), 39 states the states not only administer but also provide a share of the cost of Medicaid-have adopted restrictions on abortion funding. In 20 of those states, the legislation is actually more severe than the

has been to push state legislatures to adopt resolutions calling for a national constitutional convention to draft an anti-abortion amendment.

The constitutional convention ("con con") route is particularly ominous. While the provision for such a convention is in Article V of the Constitution itself, we've never had one before, and no one quite knows how or what it could do.

Pro-choice activists fear Congress will panic as the "con con" resolutions mount and will pass the "Human Life" amendment on to the states like a political hot potato to avoid the uncertainties posed by the convention. That would force the women's movement and its allies, still hard-pressed to win passage of the ERA, to begin another bitter round of state by state struggles.

"Pro-choice activists fear Congress will panic as the 'con con' resolutions mount and will pass the 'Human Life' amendment on to the states like a political hot potato to avoid the uncertainties....

federal restrictions. In eight states, the new laws are not being enforced because of federal or state court orders which require the funding of "medically necessary" abortions; and one other state is under court order to fund at least those abortions covered by the "compromise" Hyde Amendment.

The attempts to eliminate funding have been resisted in the courts with varying degrees of success. One of the hardest fought and lengthiest legal battles is the Brooklyn case, McRae v. Califano, a class action suit brought by poor women who need abortions, doctors who want to be able to provide Medicaid abortions for their poor patients, and the Women's Division of the United Methodist Church. Much of the evidence in the case has dealt with medical issues surrounding unwanted pregnancies and emphasizes the staggering implications of the cutoff of funding and of access to abortion, especially for poor and young women.

HEW studies indicate that if all Medicaid funding in the U.S. were eliminated, we could expect 250 to 300 women to die each year and as many as 25,000 to suffer serious medical complications from self-induced or illegal abortions. Before legalization, for example, 6,000 women every year were admitted to New York City's public hospitals for incomplete abortions. After legalization—and with Medicaid coverage—the number of yearly deaths from illegal abortions fell from 40 to zero.

Government funding for Medicaid coverage for poor women is only one of the targets of the antichoice onslaught. They are chipping away at every woman's right to exercise personal choice in this area. During the last two years, Congress has: (1) cut off abortion funding for armed forces personnel and dependents; (2) gagged the US Civil Rights Commission by forbidding it to study or publish anything connected to women's constitutional rights in regard to abortion; (3) passed a long-awaited pregnancy disability bill that specifically excluded any employer obligation to cover abortion under employee sick leave or insurance plans; and (4) denied abortion coverage to Peace Corps volunteers.

There is another and even more threatening level of legislative attack, on abortion rights. A serious, well-funded and well-organized campaign is underway to force a constitutional amendment that would make abortion illegal. The "Human Life" amendment would define the fetus as a legal person from the moment of conception (fertilization). It would probably make use of the IUD and some birth control pills illegal, since they are thought to prevent implantation of the fertilized egg.

Strategy around this constitutional amendment takes two routes. One method relies on getting it passed by Congress and sent out to the states for ratification. The other strategy, favored by the more rightwing elements of the Right to Life movement,

Page 10/What She Wants/May, 1979

Not all of the attacks on abortion rights have been on the national or state levels. Municipal governments have come under intense pressure to adopt all sorts of procedural requirements that subject clinics or hospitals to administrative harassment, from deliberately over-stringent building regulations to demands for burdensome record-keeping. One of the more offensive recent trends has been the demand on

LET THEM PAY FOR THEIR ABORTIONS...

YOU'VE COME

TO THE RIGHT PLACE.

Auth/LNS

the part of local Right to Life groups for the names of those doctors who have received reimbursement for Medicaid-funded abortions. The names are then printed in local publications, sometimes the Catholic newspaper in the area, to create social or economic pressure on doctors and discourage them from making abortion services available.

The Right to Life Movement

The anti-abortion pressure on Congress and state legislatures is extremely well-organized and heavily funded. The National "Right to Life" Committee, which includes most of the anti-choice groups, claims a membership of 11 million and has a $3 million annual budget.

Ultra-conservative leaders are making a systematic and well-funded attempt to build a base for a new right wing by playing on many people's genuine fears and confusion over changing values and life styles. They use the "pro-family" issues (anti-abortion, anti-ERA, anti-gay rights) as an organizing vehicle to defeat liberal legislators and push for a return to a more "traditional" society.

Religious Freedom

The political struggle around abortion has been deeply affected by religious forces. While there are several religious denominations which officially op-

pose abortion-the Mormons, Orthodox Judaism, some fundamentalist Protestants-none have been as active or as influential nationally as the Roman Catholic Church. Evidence presented during the McRae v. Califano trial indicated widespread and intensive Church involvement in the legislative battles. In fact, some 15 different religious groups and organizations filed a friend of the court brief in support of the McRae claim that the Medicaid cutoff represented an establishment of religion and violation of the religious and conscientious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.

The religious community as a whole is deeply divided over the question as to when human life begins and on the issue of the morality of abortion. Most Protestant and Jewish groups reject the doctrine that the fetus is a human being and believe that the woman must make a conscientious decision, in accordance with her faith or deepest convictions, about whether to end a pregnancy. Even religious groupings, like the Baptists and Jehovah's Witnesses, who view abortion as posing a serious moral and spiritual problem, oppose government intervention on the question.

One does not have to be a member of a specific religious group with an official pro-choice position in order to demand the human and constitutional right to make such a deeply personal decision without government interference. The McRae brief likens the decision to bear or not bear a child to conscientious objection to military service and declares, "Pregnancy presents for every woman ultimate questions of life and death, in both a physical and spiritual sense....The suffering and damage inflicted by forced childbearing, whether it be described as psychological or spiritual, is one which a woman can never escape either during pregnancy or thereafter....[T]he state must stand back,'

The 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that affirmed women's right to choose abortion recognized the deep divisions on the issue and observed that, "When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."

Personal Note

There's more than just religious backgrounds and attitudes that complicates our thinking about this issue.....And all of us, no matter whether we've experienced it directly or not, have particular and highly charged feelings about pregnancy. The defining issue in our feelings about our own or another's pregnancy is whether it is wanted or unwanted. It is that distinction, and the incredible particularity of each woman's situation, that I think we must bear in mind if we want to develop a loving and human way of approaching this issue.

Pro-Lifers Anti-Social

Washington, D.C.-Most so-called "pro-life" legislators do not support legislation that seeks to improve the quality of life. This is the conclusion of a study recently released which analyzes anti-abortion Congresspersons' votes on five key human welfare issues in 1978.

71% percent of the group of 142 Congresspersons studied scored in a LOW Social Quotient category, which means they voted for 2 or fewer of the five social issues. Half of the group, including antiabortion leaders Robert Dornan, Henry Hyde, and Bob Bauman, scored zero, supporting none of the human welfare issues considered.

The social issues rated were related to increased funding for health, education and welfare programs; consumer protection; jobs; and the ERA.

The study appears in the March 1979 issue of the National Abortion Rights League (NARAL) Newsletter. For a copy of the study, contact NARAL, 825 15th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20005.