MaximsNews Columnist

        Gloria Feldt 

ARE YOUR FREEDOMS AT RISK? 

          Gloria Feldt is the author of The War on Choice: the right-wing attack on women’s rights and how to fight back and Behind Every Choice Is a Story and was president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America from 1996-2005.  

Gloria Feldt is a MaximsNews Columnist and she contributed this speech to MaximsNews; it was delivered earlier to the Hadassah National Convention,  July 18, 2005, Washington Hilton, Washington DC. GloriaFeldt@MaximsNews.com

         UNITED NATIONS - 25 July 2005  / www.MaximsNews.com / "Thank you for inviting me back—I spoke to your meeting last year and am honored to be here again. Hadassah does such important work in the community and globally. I am very proud to be with you. 

I grew up in the buckle of the Texas Bible Belt, Temple TX (where there was no temple, by the way), and it was being a member of a small minority that I learned the core Jewish values of Tikkun Olam: the moral imperative to repair the world through social justice. 

Today, it is surely up to us to us to take our country back from the far right and to fight forward for social justice regarding women’s human right to make our own childbearing decisions.  

When you asked me to answer the question, “Are Your Rights at Risk?” my first thought was that this would be a very short speech: 

“YES!” 

But you expect a little more from me, don’t you? 

So I’ll tell you a story. I am a grandmother, and I know some of you have that happiness as well. This story is about Mrs. Smith, aged 82. She went to a new young primary care physician for her annual exam. She had written down all her medications a he requested. 

The young doctor looked at the list and asked, “Mrs. Smith, I understand why you are taking all these medications except one. Why do you have birth control pills on your list?” Mrs. Smith replied, “They help me sleep at night.” 

“There, there, my dear, there is nothing in birth control pills that possibly help you sleep at night,” he said. “Oh yes there is,” retorted Mrs. Smith. “I have a 16-year-old granddaughter who lives with me. Every morning I grind up a pill and put it into her orange juice.  And believe you me, this helps me sleep at night!” 

Right now, none of us can sleep at night without worrying about the many threats to our reproductive rights and access to reproductive health care that makes rights meaningful. 

I will mention several of the first amendment aspects of this issue: gag rules, ideology trumping science, threats to medical privacy, abstinence-only programs, and what I call the incredible shrinking woman phenomenon in which women’s moral autonomy is devalued when the fertilized egg is granted greater legal status than theirs. 

But I would be remiss not to touch on this critical moment for our courts, as Justice O’Connor’s resignation puts everything on the table vulnerable and at risk. (Note: this speech was given one day before President Bush nominated Judge John Roberts to the U. S. Supreme Court seat vacated by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.) 

And finally, I’ll talk about the political context and the necessary political solutions, specifically what you can do. Because I do believe this is a moment of opportunity if we are smart enough to see it and use it. 

THE FIRST AMENDMENT AND RISKS TO YOUR REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM

I’ve mentioned gag rules which violate freedom of speech, and medical ethics, by preventing health care providers from telling their patients all their alternatives when faced with unintended or health-risky pregnancy. 

They also prevent organizations from advocating for legal abortion, or even giving public health information about it. 

President Bush’s first act was to impose the global gag rule on international family planning funds. The result has been that many organizations have given up the funds rather than give up their ethical principles—and that means reduced access to birth control services that prevent the need for abortion. 

Less obvious is that the Administration quietly shifts funding to their pet faith-based organizations but does not require them to use normal public health procedure such as condom distribution to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.   

State legislatures are passing their own versions of gag rules too. Though we have been able to strike some of these down in the courts, anti-choice forces are getting smarter about crafting legislative language. 

In one state, when advocates for family planning successfully challenged the state’s gag rule, the legislature retaliated by eliminating the family planning program altogether. 

What’s happening with emergency contraception will give you an example of several of the other threats to your freedom of speech and religion. 

Emergency contraception (EC) prevents pregnancy from occurring in over 90% of cases when taken within 120 hours of intercourse—such as when the condom breaks or if there has been a sexual assault. 

It is so safe that 34 other countries with careful prescription drug oversight have already allowed it to be sold over-the-counter. 

The FDA’s scientific committees have considered the facts and recommended overwhelmingly that the branded EC called Plan B be allowed to go over-the-counter. Pharmacies are often open 24/7, whereas doctors’ offices are not and the time-sensitivity is important. 

If every woman had ready access to EC, ½ of all unintended pregnancies and ½ of all abortions could be prevented. Imagine! Wouldn’t we want that? 

So why then has the FDA leadership stalled for over a year and failed to take the advice of its own scientific committees? And why is it that some pharmacists won’t even fill a prescription for EC, claiming their religious beliefs take precedence over their clients’?

Why? Because their ideology tells them that the fertilized egg has more value than the woman from the moment of conception and they have the arrogance to believe that gives them the right to impose their religious beliefs on others.  

They’re entitled to their beliefs but not to make the rest of us live by them. The first amendment is supposed to protect us from this kind of intrusion, but increasingly state and federal policies allow it. 

The same censorship and ideological intrusions apply to abstinence-only programs that do not provide people with medically accurate information, and there are many more examples I could give you. 

THE UPCOMING COURT BATTLES

Here’s one place where I agree with my adversaries. 

Tony Perkins, president of the far right Family Research Council which opposes reproductive rights and health care access and works to overturn Roe v Wade was quoted in the New York Times last Friday regarding the upcoming Supreme Court nomination:  

“People have to understand, this is not just about a process. This is about the future of the country, it is about our families, it is about the freedom of religion.”  

Indeed. It IS about all those things. The difference is we are trying to protect everyone’s freedoms under the Constitution in a pluralistic society whereas Perkins’s group is trying to take our freedoms away. 

While the Constitutional issues are usually reduced to Roe by the media, it is important to remember that the principles of reproductive privacy and self-determination that underlie Roe, are the same principles that were originally articulated in Griswold v Connecticut that gave us the right to birth control. 

Make no mistake: much more than abortion rights are at risk. 

That’s why you and I must stand up for real American values of freedom and tolerance of a diversity of religious beliefs. But your rights, freedoms, and access concerning childbearing decisions will be affirmed or eviscerated by President Bush’s choices, and remember he has said his ideal is Antonin Scalia. 

This brings me to the political context and a political context can only be altered by a political solution. 

POLITICAL CONTEXT, POLITICAL SOLUTIONS

For the first time in history, the White House, Congress, many state legislatures, and increasingly the Federal Courts because after President Bush is making those appointments, are aligned to take away your reproductive freedoms. 

The extreme right made a strategic decision almost 40 years ago that they would organize their grassroots to take over the mechanisms of the Republican Party precinct by precinct, gain control over more of the media, and stick with their agenda for the long term. 

While we have often fought the battles with them one at a time, the fact is there is a strategically designed war on choice with at least six interlocking tactics. 

I wrote my book, The War on Choice precisely to lay these tactics out for all to see. 

They include censorship which we have discussed, reducing access by defunding of family planning (note I said family planning, not abortion which has not been federally funded for many years) and restricting access to abortion, placing ideology over science, elevating the fertilized egg over the woman in moral value and in law, harassment and intimidation, and of course the end game, packing the courts. 

Are your rights at risk? Yes! 

However, we can’t fault any group for participating in the democratic process. If we are going to turn things around, we have to participate more and better. The only antidote in a democracy is more democracy. That’s the political solution to a political problem. 

When we come to Supreme Court nominations, there are three fallacies that we must correct: 

1. They will say that there should be no litmus test. That is correct. But upholding the Constitution, including the expansion of freedoms that have been affirmed over time, isn’t a litmus test.  We would not allow anyone who opposes Brown v Board of Education because desegregation wasn’t in the original Constitution to sit on the Court, would we? Nor should anyone who will not affirm support for a woman’s right to make her own childbearing decisions without government intrusion sit on the Court. Period.

2. They will say that #1 above constitutes a “religious test”. Don’t buy this torqued logic. Our Constitution guarantees that each of us will have the religious freedom to apply our own beliefs to such profoundly personal situations and make reproductive and childbearing decisions in consultation with our own consciences—not that of the politicians or even judges.

3. They will say that “special interests” shouldn’t influence the judicial confirmation process. Well, look around you. 51% of the population isn’t a mere “special interest”!  And why shouldn’t all Americans feel free to make our voices heard? That’s what the first amendment is all about, after all.

OUR MOMENT OF OPPORTUNITY

There is no doubt in my mind that this is a moment of opportunity even though the landscape looks rather bleak. 

We must first have determination in our hearts, express our passion, tell our stories and use the power of our voices. We must frame reproductive freedoms as human right, because that’s what they are. Assume the moral high ground because we own it. 

We must seize the moments when the right overreaches—because that’s what they are doing right now. 

The Schiavo situation, the opposition to potentially lifesaving stem cell research, the attacks on the judiciary, Karl Rove’s current troubles, the growing disapproval of the war in Iraq—they have given us much to work with. But we have to call out their hypocrisy and not let up. 

But we can’t stop there. The progressives’ strategic mistake is too often putting all their energy into defending and opposing. No. We have to set the agenda because that’s how you frame the terms of the debate. That’s how to fight forward. 

For example in the area of reproductive rights and health care access, work to pass the Prevention First Act which is now in Congress. 

In addition to expanding access to contraceptive coverage by insurance, it would make EC better known and more accessible, assure that sex education be medically accurate, and provide more funding for family planning for the uninsured. 

But don’t stop there. The Freedom of Choice Act must be passed at the state and federal levels to write into laws the basic principles that we thought our Constitution guaranteed to us in the first place. 

We won our reproductive freedoms from the top down through the courts the first time. We have to win them from the bottom up this time, one person, one vote, one state, one policy at a time. 

Are our rights at risk? Yes! Will we let them be taken away? No! 

Together, we will most surely take out country back and fight forward for Tikkun Olam. 

And we will all be able to sleep better at night.

          GloriaFeldt@MaximsNews.com

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