Editorial
November 2000

Bush, Gore and abortion

The approval of Mifepristone (R.U.-486), the so-called abortion pill, after a 20-year delay, brought women's struggle for the right to control their own bodies briefly into the forefront of the presidential campaign. It forced Governor George W. Bush-who successfully smothered the debate on abortion within his own party-to once again reveal his hostility to women's right to choose. And it allowed Vice President Al Gore to opportunistically say that under his administration women's right to abortion would be protected.

Bush, well aware that most Americans think that abortion should remain legal, said only that the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval was "wrong" and that it would make abortions "more and more common, rather than more and more rare." As brief a statement as that was, it revealed that, to Bush, making abortion "rare" doesn't mean helping reduce unwanted pregnancies, but simply making legal abortions ever more difficult to obtain.

LESS ACCESS TO ABORTION

Gore's assurances that he will maintain women's right to choose, has to be viewed in light of how women's access to legal abortions has eroded under President Clinton's watch. The statistics are well known: 86% of U.S. counties have no abortion providers and the number of doctors providing legal abortions has dropped from 2,900 in 1996 to only 2,000 today. There's no reason to think Gore can do any better.

Gary Bauer, right-wing leader of the Campaign for Working Families, said confidently a day after the approval of Mifepristone, "I don't think anything happened yesterday that is irreversible." His cronies in the Senate wasted no time in trying to make that a reality by proposing legislation that would severely restrict how Mifepristone is used and by whom.

Mifepristone's approval also highlighted the power the next president will have to appoint Supreme Court judges who could help carry out a right-wing agenda and completely gut or overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion. The Green Party candidate, Ralph Nader, had his head in the sand when he said recently that Roe v. Wade "is a settled issue. We're not going back to the alley again. Pro-choicers are too strong." If that were so, women wouldn't be in the position they are today, saddled with waiting periods, parental consent laws, late abortion bans, and serious lack of access and unnecessary expense.

THREAT OF REACTIONARY JUDGES

Nor is it only the Supreme Court that a new president would have the opportunity to shape. Now many of the right-wing judges Reagan appointed to the nation's 13 circuit courts of appeal are finally retiring, giving the new president power to shape the judiciary one level below the Supreme Court. There is no question that Bush would name reactionary justices. He made that crystal clear when he said the Supreme Court judges he admired most were the reactionary, misogynist, anti-human rights Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.

Given this retrogressive reality one has to sharply question some feminist euphoria, for example the statement by Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, who called Mifepristone "the most significant technological advance in women's reproductive healthcare since the birth control pill." It is not only that further restrictions may be applied to the use of this drug, but the restrictions already imposed by the FDA-doctors using the pill must determine how long a woman has been pregnant, and have ready access to surgical abortions-will drastically cut down on its use because access to surgical abortions is already so limited.

Furthermore, the Population Council, which holds the U.S. patent to Mifepristone, will not only audit doctors prescribing the drug but also require them to gather statistics on how many women suffer serious side effects as well as how effective it is. Women will also be required to sign a patient agreement form. All this record-keeping is being done in an atmosphere of terror; October 2000 is the secondanniversary of the gunning down of Dr. Barnett Slepian by an anti-abortion maniac who is still at large. All these mean that many doctors will refuse to use Mifepristone, just as they have refused to offer vacuum aspirator abortions.

Today's reality reveals that we can't look to a president to gain freedom for us-although when it comes to a woman's right to control her own body, Bush in the White House would be a disaster. In order for such a great breakthrough as Mifepristone to truly be made available to all women who desire it, we must look to our own self-activity and reason. As long as women's freedom depends on who is president, it is hollow because, as we see so clearly today, it can be taken away by one election.