MARCH 3, 1995
A NOW leader today is blasting House Republicans for legislative moves this week that would have axed funding for a popular domestic violence hotline program, that would eliminate abortion funding for poor women who are victims of rape and incest and that would impose a bizarre new incentive for states to restrict abortions.
"Republicans in the House are conducting political guerilla warfare on women under the cover provided by their Senate counterparts' inept maneuvering on the balanced budget amendment," said NOW Executive Vice President Kim Gandy, an attorney who heads NOW's government relations team. "We knew Republicans would break the pledge to keep their hands off of volatile social issues in their first 100 days and, in a budgetslashing frenzy, they are throwing reason to the wind as well."
The House Appropriations Committee yesterday voted to let states reinstate the Hyde amendment ban on abortion funding for poor women who are victims of rape and incest, even though a report showed the federal government paid for only two such abortions while the restrictions were lifted. The committee voted to reinstate $1 million in funding for a domestic violence hotline that had been axed from the initial draft of a FY 95 rescissions bill, which cuts this year's appropriations.
"Republicans are making cuts so fast and furious that they are making serious political mistakes, like looting some of the Violence Against Women Act programs and attacking funding for battered women's shelters" said Gandy. "We will not let them undermine progress in ending violence against women. Our activists and allies will thunder that message home to Congress during a massive rally on the National Mall April 9."
Earlier this week the House Ways and Means Committee proposed rewarding states for reducing their "illegitimacy" ratio, defining it as the combination of "out of wedlock" births and all abortions, divided by the total number of births.
"In saying that all abortions would have resulted in illegitimate births right wing leaders are proposing the bizarre new concept that illegitimacy begins at conception," said Gandy. "What will they think of next?"