WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 1995
NOW leaders have vowed to make it a long, hot summer for members of Congress who are working to end legalized abortion. NOW President Patricia Ireland said today's failure by the Senate to end the filibuster on the nomination of Dr. Henry Foster for surgeon general, and a House subcommittee's approval of a bill banning a seldom-used abortion procedure, are evidence of escalating attacks against abortion rights.
"The cat's out of the Republican's bag of tricks," Ireland said. "There's no denying that the so-called Christian Coalition has a financial and political strangle-hold on key Republicans in both houses. They are out to abolish abortion, period. And they're using the Foster nomination and a ban on abortion procedures as their first steps.
"The Reagan-Bush litmus test for anti-abortion views has been reinstated for surgeon general nominees, as well as for the entire medical profession. The obstructionist filibuster led by Phil Gramm -- and supported by his Christian Coalition-cowed cronies -- is unfair to the nominee who would obviously win on a floor vote, and it's a clear signal that women's reproductive rights are in jeopardy. Most people in this country support Dr. Foster and do not believe performing legal abortions during 38 years of an obstetrics/gynecology practice is a disqualifier for holding public office.
"In the House, the Constitution subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee passed an intentionally vague bill that is unconstitutional under the vestiges of Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court's most comprehensive, recent decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The late-term procedures included in the bill are used in tragic circumstances when the life or health of the woman is in danger or in the case of severe fetal abnormalities, such as anencephaly. Congress is replacing medical judgment with micromanaged medical malpractice, and women will suffer for it.
"We're turning up the heat because we won't have our hard-gained reproductive rights put on ice," Ireland concluded.