Twenty years ago, on January 22, 1973, supporters of women's reproductive rights in the United States rejoiced at the surprise Supreme Court decision to legalise abortion. Yet abortion in the US today is anything but a guaranteed right. Claudette Bégin, a leader of the San Francisco Bay Area Pro-Choice Coalition and coordinator of the Women's Task Force for the Bay Area Committees of Correspondence, reports on the state of the struggle.
Today, after more than a decade of attacks on abortion rights, the pro-choice movement rejoices at the end of the administrations of Reagan and Bush, which led those attacks. Clinton has reversed by executive order the "gag" rule, which said that abortion couldn't be mentioned at any institution that received federal funds.
The reversal of the ban on abortions at military hospitals was also greeted with joy. That ban left women at military facilities outside the US unable to obtain abortions in many cases. The promise to reconsider the current ban on the import of RU-486 was also important.
However, the fact is that these changes, welcome though they are, don't guarantee the right to an abortion. Even if the proposed Freedom of Choice Act (which would reverse some of the negative decisions of the US Supreme Court) were passed, the abortion issue would not be "solved".
Eighty-three per cent of US counties have no abortion providers. Most of these counties are rural, but fully one-half of metropolitan counties are represented in this statistic. This translates into one-third of women in the US living in an area with no abortion providers.
Even where there are abortion providers, women who are dependent on state or federal funding for medical care often cannot get their abortions paid for (this is true of 38 states). Thirty states don't allow Medicaid funds to be used for elective abortions even in the case of rape or incest!
This is the cumulative legacy — starting from the late '70s, during a Democratic administration — of Supreme Court decisions allowing administrations and legislatures to erode reproductive rights.
The denial of state and federal funds has meant a double standard for women on state or federal aid. In some states, those same women are also financially penalised for having additional
children.
The cutback in public employees and public facilities has contributed to the decrease of teaching hospitals that train in abortion procedures; it has removed access in those areas where the public hospital is the only medical facility that could perform abortions.
The requirement of parental consent, which the Supreme Court has let stand in state law, has placed a terrible burden on terrified young women; a burden which has resulted in some deaths. The 24-hour waiting period, another restriction allowed by the court, is especially cruel to poor and working women. The mandated anti-choice presentation, disguised as "informed consent", is pure intimidation to frighten and demoralise women.
Because the Supreme Court decided that states were allowed to set up these restrictions, women's groups and pro-choice organisations have been forced to fight on a state by state basis against these laws.
The major women's and pro-choice groups are reshaping their strategies in relation to the new administration, hoping to reintroduce federal protections. The Washington DC Pro-Choice Coalition, constituted as a national coalition and lobby of the major pro-choice groups, is poised to introduce and lobby for the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) to legislatively reinstate Roe v. Wade. It is also preparing a bill in response to a recent Supreme Court decision which barred federal judges from stopping protesters who try to block women's access to abortion clinics.
NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) has announced it will broaden and strengthen its efforts to promote family planning as well as abortion rights. The National Abortion Federation (NAF) plans to push for removal of state requirements for a physician's licence for abortion, allowing abortions to be provided by nurse-practitioners.
These major pro-choice organisations recognise that even with the passage of the proposed Freedom of Choice Act and the clinic bill, the major problem of access will not be solved. They don't expect to be able to do more than begin the process of re-enlisting the power of the federal government to safeguard abortion rights.
They are not certain how far Clinton will go in defending abortion rights. The previous effort to get FOCA passed last summer, while a so-called pro-choice Democrat campaign was in full swing, was bogged down by the accumulation of restrictions on the bill, introduced by both Democrats and Republicans.
FOCA as presently written would legislate the reversal of only some of these Supreme Court decisions abridging abortion rights. Prohibition of federal and state funding would still be permitted, and parental consent would still be required.
Encouraged by the government and the Supreme Court decisions, anti-choice terrorists and fanatics have organised to restrict and remove access to abortion services. Since the founding of Operation Rescue and the proliferation of fundamentalist groups in alliance with it, women seeking abortions and the clinics and people providing the service have been harassed. There was a crescendo of these attacks in the national mobilisations by Operation Rescue in 1991 and 1992.
An entirely new dimension of the pro-choice movement was developed to physically defend clinics. So effective have these defences been that in most larger cities Operation Rescue gave up its attacks.
The national attacks in 1991 and 1992 were a new strategy by them. They targeted one city and vowed to shut down abortion services there, choosing cities where they were able to get some help, either from local governments or from strong fundamentalist or Catholic churches.
Except for the first attack in Wichita, where the pro-choice defenders were restricted by inadequate tactics imposed on them, the national attacks were soundly defeated and out-mobilised by the women's movement.
In the wake of those defeats, Operation Rescue and others are targeting clinics in areas away from major cities. They are also targeting the individuals who work at the clinics, including the doctors, harassing them and their families even at their homes. The arson, bombing and butyric acid attacks by the most fanatic are applauded by these organisations.
The combination of all of these attacks is calculated to demoralise the dwindling ranks of abortion providers; the statistics show they have had some success, especially in outlying areas. The recent Supreme Court decision to remove the basis for federal injunctions against these anti-choice attacks will only encourage their proliferation.
We must accelerate our mobilisation against the fascist-like organisations that would deny our rights. We will need to travel to the more isolated areas under attack.
It is time to mount a campaign to expose the anti-choice fanatics, by demanding a real federal investigation and prosecution of the terrorists who bomb, set fires and inject
butyric acid. Authorities have been complicit by not treating these attacks seriously.
Efforts to increase the availability of other family planning methods are to be applauded and also the NAF proposal to allow physician assistants and nurse practitioners to perform abortions. We can't forget though the absolutely essential nature of abortion being totally available and accessible; it is the key aspect of reproductive rights.
It is time for the women's movement to go on the offensive. The major pro-choice marches in San Francisco and Washington, DC, in 1992, which rivalled the size of the demonstrations at the height of the anti-Vietnam War movement, show the sentiment that exists. We must build a movement that goes beyond the fight to make abortion legally accessible. We must wage a fight for access for women of all economic levels and in all geographic areas.
To accomplish this, we can't be content with the restrictions that create a class division in access to our reproductive rights, and we can't be content to sit back and count on the government to do the job for us. Abortion is every woman's right, and the women's movement can't rest until those rights are truly won for all.