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The Central Question Is, Who Decides?
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16652 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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10 / 1989 |
2,018 Words |
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Kate Michelman
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In July, the Supreme Court made abortion a dominant issue in American politics. The aftershocks of the Court's stunning ruling in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services are already being felt. Consider some of the early activity:
Louisiana's legislature earned the dubious distinction of being the first to restrict reproductive choice by mandating 10 years of hard labor for anyone performing an abortion. Within a week, Louisiana's legislators had accepted the Supreme Court's invitation to send doctors to jail, women to the back alleys, and individual freedoms to the dark ages.
In Florida, Gov. Bob Martinez called a special session of the state legislature for October. Florida will have a chance to follow Louisiana's shameful example. And Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, and other states are poised to consider restricting the right to choose abortion as early as this fall.
In late July, when America's governors convened in Chicago, abortion was not on the agenda--but it was on everybody's mind. The governors know the days when they could remain silent on choice have ended.
In August, when thousands of state legislators attended the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislators in Tulsa, abortion was a key topic.
In the first congressional test since the Court ruled, choice advocates won an unexpected and significant victory when members of the House defeated an amendment that would have taken the right to make decisions about abortion away from citizens of the District of Columbia.
In the first electoral test since the Court ruled, prochoice voters in California edged Tricia Hunter to victory in the race for an open seat in the state assembly. She was the only prochoice candidate and considered a dark horse in a crowded field.
Abortion will remain prominent in the months ahead because so much is at stake. How we resolve this debate has significant implications for how we function as a democracy, how much we value women's lives, and whether we will protect the most basic personal freedoms.
The impact of the Webster ruling cannot be overstated. The Court said that states can make the right to choose so difficult, so expensive, and so burdensome that it will no longer be a right for all Americans. That ruling was a giant step backward for our nation and a tremendous loss of liberty for every American.
With that ruling, the Supreme Court cracked the foundation of privacy that has been the basis for personal decisions about abortion, contraception, and other freedoms in America for decades.
Women's most fundamental right sits precariously in the shifting sands of electoral politics. Politicians now have the power to send America backward, to the days when a woman had to risk her life in order to end a crisis pregnancy. The Louisiana legislature wasted no time in legitimizing that fear. America is now careening down the slippery slope toward government control of our most fundamental
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