TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1977 ·

Today's Living

SECTION C

Walkout is pro-lifer's

last word in Houston

By Fran Arman

HOUSTON — The orderly conduct that marked the first two sessions of the National Womens Conference vanished at yesterday's final session when approximately 300pro-life delegates, including some members of the Ohio delegation, walked out of the convention floor chanting.

Leaving unfinished business, the conference abruptly ended one hour late, with chair Addie Wyatt pleading, "Let us leave with some semblance of the sisterhood that we started with."

Ironically, the walkout occured after the delegates easily passed controversial resolutions such as those dealing with the equal rights amendment, reproductive freedom and lesbian rights, in the two previous sessions.

Only the last of the 26 issues needed to be ratified, the resolution that proposed a cabinet level womens department in the executive branch of the federal government.

That resolution was the only one that failed, despite the urging of feminist leader Gloria Steinem. She told the group that they had “everything to gain, and nothing to lose" by such a department.

Under new business, the delegates passed a resolution that will establish a committee that will serve until President Carter appoints a similar

one.

Numerous other resolutions submitted by the caucuses late Sunday night were to have been considered as new business. Those issues included discrimination against women in the military, housing problems, the decriminalization of prostitution, sports and environmental hazards facing women.

When it was suggested that these resolutions and other remaining business be referred to the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, the audience shouted its protest. The walkout of some delegates from Ohio, Mississippi, Alabama, Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska began, and in the bedlam a motion to adjourn was quickly passed.

The resolution proposed as new business will now go to the IWY Commission, despite the earlier protest against such a move.

At a press conference after the session ended, Joan M. Gubbins, an Indiana state senator and floor leader of the pro-life, pro-family minority, explained the walkout.

..

She said they decided to walk out because of the mismanagement of time, plus many of the delegates had travel schedules to meet.

"All through the conference we spent an extraordinay amount of time listening to speeches," she explained. "We could have done away with three quarters of them, and they still could get their propaganda in. They (the commission) assured me that the agenda must be kept, and I advised people accordingly.”

Sen. Gubbins said the pro-family delegates did support some of the resolutions and only partially objected to others. She said she would be sending a minority report to President Carter. "I feel sad we couldn't get together in a better spirit," she said.

In another press conference Bella Abzug, the presiding officer of the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, commented on final sessions, saying, "There were differences of opinion, and people are always edgy when they have to catch a plane."

The commission now has 120 days to submit its report to Congress and President Carter. The President then has 120 days to read the report with its 25-point national plan of action, and make his recommendations.

!

Midge Costanza, assistant to President Carter, spoke to the conference in the final session. "What happens when you go back to your communities?" she asked the crowd. "You have to defeat elected officials who do not share our response and support elected officials who stand up for what they believe no matter if it is unpopular or controversial.

She said that President Carter's response to the conference would be a sensitive one. "To use this phrase," she said, “you can depend on it."