"NOW promises to be outside John Ashcroft's Senate Judiciary hearings opening day and every day the sessions continue. Women's rights and other activists will be there to remind the Senate that we will not tolerate an ultra-conservative Attorney General who threatens the rights and liberties of people in this country," said National Organization for Women (NOW) President Patricia Ireland.

"Every member of the Senate must carefully review Ashcroft's record and consider whether he is fit to uphold and enforce all the laws of this country, including laws protecting civil rights and those against hate crimes, clinic violence and discrimination," said Ireland.  "Ashcroft has proven that his priorities lie with his own personal agenda and the Senate is responsible for making sure he does not control the scales of justice in the U.S."

"Cabinet nominee John Ashcroft supports some of the most regressive social policies on the ultra-conservative agenda," Ireland said. "He  has urged a ban on several of the most effective forms of birth control as well as abortion; he advocates giving public monies to church-run programs; and he used his position as Attorney General of Missouri to stop NOW's call of a boycott of his state
when it had not ratified the ERA."

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