A second term will undoubtedly embolden President George W. Bush to step up his efforts to restrict women's reproductive rights. Over the last four years, his administration has already moved to limit women's access to abortion and contraception, silence abortion providers around the world, and cut funds from women's reproductive health services.

At the Center for Reproductive Rights, we believe the Bush administration will pursue the following anti-woman action plan:

I. Overturning Roe v. Wade : Bush will work to deliver to his base the "culture of life" he has long promised and promoted. To grant them the ultimate prize - a reversal of Roe - he will appoint new justices to the Supreme Court who share the ideology of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, as he has promised to do. In addition, his administration will most likely present a legal challenge to the fundamental principle enshrined in Roe, and that challenge will undoubtedly wend its way up to the Supreme Court. To realize his vision of an America without the protection of Roe, we expect President Bush will take the following steps:

In the Courts:

• Appoint justices to the Supreme Court who share the ideology of Justices Scalia and Thomas to ensure that Roe will be overturned when the Court is given the chance.
• Continue efforts to pack lower courts with judges who will advance anti-choice legal arguments.
• Pursue appeals in the three challenges to the federal abortion ban ("Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003") and prepare to file briefs in the Supreme Court. Depending upon the composition of the Court at the time, these briefs might argue one of two things. First, they could argue that the Court should reverse Stenberg v. Carhart, the Court's 2000 decision striking down a similar law. Second, they might argue that the case requires outright reversal of Roe.
• File briefs in the Supreme Court promoting a reversal of Roe in other cases involving abortion.

In Congress and the Executive Branch:

• Promote legislation in Congress that could be used as a vehicle to overturn Roe.
• Promote federal statutes and regulations that use the term "unborn child" to describe the fetus, allowing the administration to argue that the fetus should be considered a person under the Constitution.

In the States:

• Work with the National Right to Life Committee to strategically introduce anti-choice measures in state legislation so that challenges to those laws will end up in the Supreme Court after new justices are appointed.

II. Restricting Access to Safe Abortion: Until Roe is fully reversed, the administration is certain to continue its support for legislative and regulatory efforts that reduce access to safe abortion. In addition, we anticipate an increase in efforts to intimidate abortion providers through needless inspections and aggressive investigations of their practices. We expect the administration will:

• Promote passage of and aggressively enforce the Weldon Amendment (formerly known as the Abortion Nondiscrimination Act or ANDA) by threatening to deny federal health and human services funding to states or local governments that "discriminate" against health-care entities because they do not provide, pay for or provide referrals for abortions.
• Continue to actively support passage of the so-called "Teen Endangerment Act (H.R. 748)" (CIANA) which would endanger teens who must travel across state lines to obtain abortions.
• Enforce CCPA aggressively, assuming it is enacted, with intrusive investigatory techniques such as issuing subpoenas for private medical records, and aggressively prosecuting aunts, grandmothers, religious counselors, and physicians who counsel minors or assist them in obtaining abortions.
• Continue denial of Medicaid funding for abortions; promote new restrictions on funding for abortion in cases of life, rape, and incest; and create additional hurdles to obtaining reimbursement in these cases.
• Continue denying use of military facilities or funding for abortions obtained by military personnel and their dependents.
• Aggressively investigate providers of medical abortion by subpoenaing private medical records and sanctioning physicians who are not following exact protocols.

III. Restricting Access to Contraception: The administration has not been content with simply restricting access to abortion, it has also been busy attacking contraceptive use as well. In the next four years we expect the administration to:

• Support passage of legislation similar to the Weldon Amendment that would restrict access to contraception.
• Promote legislation to withdraw contraceptive coverage for federal employees, including military personnel, or limit coverage to married couples.
• Actively support challenges to contraceptive equity laws by filing amicus briefs supporting those challenges.
• Continue to deny over-the-counter status to emergency contraception (Plan B), even for adult women, arguing that EC is an abortifacient.
• Cut funding for Title X programs that provide low-cost, confidential family planning services; and attempt to remove the requirement that services be given without parental involvement.

IV. Restricting Speech about Abortion: One of the administration's most insidious tactics has been to restrict speech about abortion. In the next four years, we expect the administration will:

• Continue to enforce the "global gag rule," preventing foreign NGOs that receive USAID funds from using their own non-U.S. funds to participate in abortion law reform in their own countries, to refer or counsel patients about abortion, or to provide abortion services.
• Revive the old Rust v. Sullivan domestic gag rule, requiring Title X clinics to completely separate their provision of abortion services from their provision of contraceptive services.
• Continue to fund and promote only those sexual health education programs using an "abstinence-only" curriculum that suppresses full and accurate information about contraception, abortion, and sexually transmissible infections.

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The Center for Reproductive Rights uses the law to advance reproductive freedom as a fundamental right that all governments are obligated to protect, respect, and fulfill.

To learn more:

Anti-Choice Legislation in State Legislatures