Today, 08 March, is International Women's Day.
In observance of this day, I want to share an interesting, scary, but inspirational op-ed by Kate Michelman, a former president of NARAL, in which she lays out the challenges facing American women's right to privacy and reproductive freedom.
An excerpt:
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After all the plotting and planning, the time was thought to be propitious. It was to be the conclusion of a carefully crafted, long-term effort that had been the right's fundamental ideological objective for decades.
These opponents of reproductive rights were poised to for their grand moment—the evisceration of a woman's right to privacy and the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
2006?
No, 1989.
Republicans held the Senate and the White House. In reviewing Webster, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to overturn Roe v. Wade. As the Court seemed poised to roll back privacy rights nationwide, anti-choice activists passed measures criminalizing abortion in Louisiana and Utah.
But none of that came to pass, and what had seemed a watershed moment for abortion opponents turned into a key rallying point for the pro-choice community across the country.
The situation today is perhaps even grimmer. Conservatives control the White House and all of Congress; they have just appointed two clearly anti-choice justices in John Roberts and Samuel Alito; and their activists are charging hard in a number of states.
Two weeks ago, South Dakota lawmakers passed a ban of all abortions and defined life as beginning at fertilization. Now it sits on the governor's desk awaiting signature. In Kansas -- as well as Indiana and Ohio -- state officials are trying to gain access to the medical records and personal information of women who have abortions.
And the Supreme Court has agreed to review a 2003 federal ban on so-called "partial birth" abortion. If this ban were upheld, it would result in a chill across the whole practice of reproductive medicine. The standard is so broad that doctors will find it difficult to know what is legal and what is not. It would ban a range of abortion methods used as early as 12-15 weeks of pregnancy; and it offers no exception for the life or health of the woman, or in the case of severe birth defects. In short, it would eviscerate a woman's right to privacy without requiring the Court to overturn Roe.
The similarities to 1989—down to the surname of the president—are quite striking.
Then, pro-choice Americans feared quite rightly that a woman's right to privacy was about to be taken away. And we reacted.
The pro-choice movement went back to its roots, into the streets and onto the airwaves. We spoke strongly, clearly and confidently. And we made the issue of choice -- "Who Decides?" -- one of the central questions of the day.
The results speak for themselves: in 1989, two new Democratic governors, Doug Wilder of Virginia and Jim Florio of New Jersey, were elected to succeed Republicans. The election of several key pro-choice senators in the mid-term election of 1990 severely weakened President George H.W. Bush and led the Democrats to recapture the Senate. And, after the unpleasant but galvanizing spectacle of the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991, Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992.
But as women's rights leaders consider how to make lightning strike twice, there are key differences we need to keep in mind.
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