[301] in peace2
victory! PARK St. TODAY!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aimee L Smith)
Wed Jun 28 15:44:30 2000
Message-Id: <200006281944.PAA10155@mint-square.mit.edu>
To: peace-list@MIT.EDU, peace-women@MIT.EDU, gwg@MIT.EDU,
bostonrnr@egroups.edu
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 14:11:44 -0400
From: Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU>
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From: "MASS NARAL" <choice@massnaral.org>
To: <choice@massnaral.org>
Subject: Supreme Court makes landmark pro-choice decision - join us for action
TODAY!
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 13:11:01
Today, a sharply divided Supreme Court struck down a Nebraska state law
banning "partial_birth" abortions _ a decision sure to escalate a bitter
national debate that has raged ever since the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in
1973.
By a 5_4 vote, the justices said the Nebraska law violates women's
constitutional right by imposing an "undue burden" on their decisions to
end their pregnancies.
With the upcoming presidential election and narrow Supreme Court victory, it
is important to have a strong pro_choice response. Come show your support!
*** JOIN US TODAY from 5_6:30 at Park Street T Stop. ***
Read on for the statement of Melissa Kogut, Executive Director of Mass
NARAL.
SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN BAN ON SAFE ABORTION PROCEDURES
AND UPHOLDS CLINIC PROTECTION LAW
By a narrow margin, the Supreme Court today struck down Nebraska's ban on
so-called "partial-birth" abortion because it fails to protect women's
health, bans safe methods of abortion prior to fetal viability and would
unduly restrict a woman's right to choose an abortion. Today's ruling
calls into immediate question the constitutionality of a proposed abortion
ban currently before the Massachusetts legislature, as well as similar bans
passed in 31 states and the federal ban twice passed by Congress and twice
vetoed by President Clinton.
"We are pleased that the Supreme Court has joined with the vast majority of
lower courts in striking down dangerous and deceptive bans on abortion
procedures," said Mass NARAL Executive Director Melissa Kogut. "We have
always maintained that such bans are extreme, deceptive, and
unconstitutional because they generally lack an exception to protect women's
health, could ban a number of safe abortion procedures, including some used
in the earlier stages of pregnancy, and would chill the practice of medicine
due to criminal penalties"
The ruling - by a 5-4 vote - places the Supreme Court itself at center stage
in the battle over reproductive freedom and choice. The next President will
likely name two, perhaps three, Supreme Court Justices - enough to overturn
Roe v. Wade. Indeed, members of the anti-choice community have said that
placing enough justices on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe is a major
objective in their support of an anti-choice candidate for president.
Presidential candidate George W. Bush opposes legal abortion and has said,
"Roe v. Wade was a reach, overstepped the constitutional bounds as far as
I'm concerned." Bush cites Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court's most
virulent opponent of Roe and legal abortion, as his model justice. In
contrast to Bush's position, Vice President Al Gore supports a woman's right
to legal abortion and has said he would only appoint justices who share this
view.
Today, the Court also upheld Colorado's clinic protection statute,
preserving an essential safeguard from violence and harassment that is all
too common at clinics in Massachusetts and across the country. This sends
an important signal to the Massachusetts House that the Buffer Zone Bill,
currently before the Massachusetts House and passed twice by the Senate,
should be quickly brought up for debate and passed.
****************************************************************************
*
Check out Mass NARAL's newly restructured web site!
www.massnaral.org
****************************************************************************
*
__________
Contents:
1. MIFEPRISTONE: FDA SHOULD APPROVE ABORTIFACIENT WITHOUT
DELAY
2. ABORTION OVERSEAS: GROUP HOPES TO LAUNCH FLOATING CLINIC
4. CATHOLIC HOSPITALS: AMA PASSES COMPROMISE REPRODUCTIVE
HEALTH SERVICES MEASURE
3. ABORTION ADS: GROUPS FIGHT TO RUN ADS IN PUBLIC
TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES
5. PRO_CHOICE ADS: AD SPOTS CHALLENGE THE MEDIA'S OWN RIGHT TO
CHOOSE
__________
1. MIFEPRISTONE: FDA SHOULD APPROVE ABORTIFACIENT WITHOUT
DELAY
The FDA should set aside partisan politics and grant
approval of the abortifacient mifepristone "without further
equivocation," a Los Angeles Times editorial asserts. The
editors point out that the drug, also known as RU_486, has been
proven "safe and effective" after years of testing and has
"obvious advantages" over surgical abortions, including a lower
risk for complications. In addition, RU_486 can be administered
at home or in a doctor's office rather than an abortion clinic,
thereby "removing women and physicians as targets of violence"
and making abortion "what most Americans believe it should be: a
private matter between doctor and patient." But with the Sept. 30 deadline
on the
horizon, the FDA, "which had inched toward approval, [now]
appears to be backtracking, suggesting unwarranted and
nonsensical restrictions on the use of the pill." For example,
the federal agency reportedly wants only doctors who are also
trained in surgical abortions to prescribe RU_486, and they must
be affiliated with a hospital less than an hour away. The editors
conclude, "Science should govern the FDA's decisions on RU_486.
There should be no more waffling" (Los Angeles Times, 6/22).
_______________
2. ABORTION OVERSEAS: GROUP HOPES TO LAUNCH FLOATING CLINIC
A Dutch doctor is raising funds to launch a floating
abortion clinic that would provide the procedure in international
waters outside the jurisdictions of countries where it is
illegal, the Scripps Howard News Service/Washington Times
reports. Amsterdam abortion provider Dr. Rebecca Gomperts and
her organization, Women on Waves, hope to raise $1 million to
purchase a 46_foot ship that would pick up pregnant women in the
ports of countries that have outlawed abortion and travel to
international waters, where the procedure could be performed
legally. The clinic, which needs another $500,000 to operate
annually, also would offer contraception and sex education, as
well as training in abortion and contraception for local health
care providers. The plan has drawn the ire of a number of U.S.
antiabortion groups. California_based Pro_Life America quickly
registered the Web address www.womenonwaves.com. Visitors to the
site seeking information on the proposed floating clinic are
automatically transferred to the Pro_Life America homepage.
About 54 countries,
primarily located in Africa, Latin America and Asia, outlaw
abortion or allow the procedure only to save a woman's life
(Lowy, Scripps Howard News Service/Washington Times, 6/10).
_____________
3. CATHOLIC HOSPITALS: AMA PASSES COMPROMISE REPRODUCTIVE
HEALTH SERVICES MEASURE
The American Medical Association's House of Delegates
yesterday approved a resolution stating that hospitals that
provide prenatal care should offer "access to pregnancy
prevention services," but neither physicians nor hospitals should
be required to perform any procedure that may "violate personally
held moral principles," the Chicago Tribune reports. Although the sponsoring
members said
the proposal aimed to ensure access to reproductive services
after religiously affiliated hospitals merge or acquire other
hospitals, Catholic leaders objected to the language that would
have required Catholic_owned facilities to provide
sterilizations, which are forbidden by the Catholic Church. Some
Catholics also feared that the measure would extend to abortion
services. (Japsen, Chicago Tribune, 6/16).
______________
4. ABORTION ADS: GROUPS FIGHT TO RUN ADS IN PUBLIC
TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES
Atlanta's public transit agency, MARTA, wrongly refused to
post paid advertising from an abortion_rights group, a federal
judge ruled last week. The National Abortion Federation tried to
purchase space on the agency's buses, trains, stations and bus
shelters for two advertisements featuring information about a
hotline for abortion information and referrals, but MARTA
rejected the ads, citing its policy of "avoiding ads for
controversial subjects." However, U.S. District Judge Charles
Pannell ruled last week that the policy was applied
"inconsistently," noting that MARTA has accepted ads in the
past concerning AIDS awareness, pregnancy counseling and adoption
services. MARTA also was the only
system to reject the campaign (Pendered,
Atlanta Journal_Constitution, 6/10).
_______________
5. PRO_CHOICE ADS: AD SPOTS CHALLENGE THE MEDIA'S OWN RIGHT TO
CHOOSE
When the Public Education Project launched a new
"unapologetic" television advertisement promoting abortion
rights, it began a different kind of right_to_choose battle
__ media executives' right to select, or, in the PEP's case,
reject, which ads are aired. The PEP's
commercial depicts a "hip_looking" young woman trailed by three
white men clad in suits who take away her remote control, select
her soda from a vending machine, and replace a beaded shirt she
picks from a clothing rack with a "dowdy" maternity dress. A
female voice_over asks, "You wouldn't want some old guys in
Washington making choices for you. Then why are you letting them
make the most important choice of all?" Executives at the New
York affiliates of NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX all declined to play the
advertisement on their networks. However, the Village Voice notes that
New York City's ABC and CBS affiliates did broadcast the DeMoss
Foundation's antiabortion "Life: What a Beautiful Choice"
campaign. According to ABC spokesperson Susan Sewell, the
difference between the advertisements was less about substance
and more about style. "The broadcast standards department felt
like the DeMoss ad was not taking a position on a controversial
issue," she said. While required to accept ads from both sides
of the political aisle, television stations by law have the right
to reject issue ads they deem inappropriate. (Lerner, Village Voice, 6/20).
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