On March 1, I stood with nine of NOW's allies to call this unprecedented Emergency Action for Women's Lives. Today, just 7 1/2 weeks later, I stand with more than 150 organizational and congressional sponsors, representatives of some 160 campuses and all of you to save women's rights to self-determination, privacy and reproductive freedom.

This is just the beginning of a long and critical fight for our lives. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been the crucial fifth vote to preserve Roe v. Wade, reportedly will retire at the end of this term, just a matter of months away. Others may retire soon as well. We must, and we will, convince our Senators to reject or, if necessary, filibuster to block confirmation of any Bush nominees who would overturn these long-recognized rights.

Whatever campaign promises Bush may toss aside, there's one promise he obviously means to keep: The man who in 1998 declared he would do everything in his power to restrict abortion now has a great deal more power and he clearly intends to use it. His reinstatement of the global gag rule and appointments of Attorney General John Ashcroft and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson would have made that clear even if Bush had not been overheard assuring allies that his faith-based initiatives would advance their anti-abortion rights agenda.

Our opponents' attacks are aimed squarely at Roe v. Wade. They are not focused solely, or even primarily, on late-term procedures, which are already illegal in the majority of states.

Despite use of the medically meaningless phrase "partial birth abortion" the abortion procedures ban overturned by a 5-to-4 vote of the Supreme Court, like the one vetoed by former President Clinton, wiped out Roe's distinction between pre- and post-viability procedures and made no exception for danger to a pregnant woman's health.

HHS Secretary Thompson in his confirmation hearings pledged to review the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the early-abortion drug mifepristone (RU 486), despite its extraordinary record of safety in a dozen years' use by hundreds of thousands of women in other countries. (No one in the Bush administration has yet called for a similar review of the safety of Viagra, despite the temporary and permanent blindness, and even death of men who have used it!)

But our opponents are not targeting only abortion either; they have birth control in their sights as
well.

President Bush wants to cut prescription contraceptive coverage for federal employees and their families. Attorney General Ashcroft opposes some of the most effective and popular forms of birth control, equating them with abortion. The U.S. House has before it a measure to require parental consent for teenagers to get birth control. And the South Carolina legislature has passed a bill eliminating family planning funding for unmarried couples.

The Bush administration has also fired off a round at potentially life-saving research as a result of
its anti-abortion rights politics.

Medical McCarthy-ism is blocking embryonic stem-cell and fetal-tissue research, dashing the hopes of those who suffer from diseases and conditions such as diabetes, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injuries. Just this week, HHS ordered the National Institutes of Health to cancel am meeting scheduled to review grant proposals for stem-cell research. Access to abortion and birth control, and freedom from the coercive use of either, is a fundamental right for women. Women will claim ultimate control over our own destinies and bodies, irrespective of the law, often at great cost to ourselves and our families. When abortion was illegal in this country, clandestine and self-induced abortions were the leading cause of maternal injury and death. We would fight for this right, under any circumstances, to save the lives and health of women.

But today, the struggle to save this fundamental right for women is also symbolic of a larger fight for all of the basic rights and expectations under attack by the Bush administration. Whether it is the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink or the temperature of the planet on which we live; our voting and other civil rights or freedom from hate crimes, violence and intimidation; our health and safety in the workplace or equal pay and a livable wage, so much of the progress we have made and our hopes for the future are on the line.

All of us will need to take extraordinary measures in these dangerous times. With this Emergency Action today we must launch a renewed, reinvigorated movement for equality and justice. As we rally and march, chant and sing, we know that there are people all over this country, indeed all around this globe, who believe as we do and will join with us. The same grassroots organizing that brought us here today--the phone-banking, fundraising, leafleting, speak-outs and teach-ins, all of it--enables us to reach out to those people, as our visibility enables them to find us.

We will increase our numbers geometrically as we welcome the arrival of the new generation of activists with their idealism and energy, as we celebrate the return of those from earlier movements with your skills and experience, and as we honor the commitment of those who have been here all along with your perseverance and wisdom.

This is a time to bring all of our resources to bear to change the course of history and politics in this country and on this planet. I know that, fighting together, we are up to the task.

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