Riding a wave of public outrage over the murder of Laci Peterson—a California woman who was killed in her eighth month of pregnancy—anti-choice lawmakers are renewing their attempt to pass federal legislation that would advance their theory of "fetal personhood." Far from doing anything to protect pregnant women—or even recognizing the harm to the pregnant woman herself—the proposed legislation is part of a concerted campaign to undermine women's reproductive rights.
"They say it undermines abortion rights," Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) told CNN. "It does. But that's irrelevant."
On May 7, anti-choice lawmakers introduced the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act" (S. 1019, H.R. 1997), or UVVA, which would amend the federal criminal code and the Uniform Code of Military Justice to create a new, separate offense if an individual kills or injures a "child in utero." This legislation would mean that a fertilized egg or zygote, an embryo, and a fetus could be deemed a "victim" of crime, independent of the pregnant woman who suffers the physical injury.
"We believe that every individual should be protected from violence and we fully support legislation that punishes acts of violence against women that harm or terminate a wanted pregnancy," said Priscilla Smith, the director of the Center for Reproductive Rights' Domestic Legal Program. "But by treating a fetus as a separate crime victim, this legislation is a dangerous step towards eroding a woman's right to control the fate of her pregnancy and her own body."
UVVA was introduced in Congress in 1999 and 2001. On April 26, 2001, the House of Representatives passed the bill with a vote of 252 to 172. The bill has never reached the Senate floor, but with the new anti-choice leadership now controlling the Senate, it is expected to act on the bill this year.
On May 22, Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced the "Motherhood Protection Act" (H.R. 2247), which would increase the penalties for individuals who perpetrate a crime against a woman that jeopardizes or terminates her pregnancy, without treating a fetus or zygote as an independent crime victim.
This anti-choice strategy is not limited to legislative initiatives. In February 2001, the Bush Administration announced that states could classify a fertilized egg as an "unborn child," eligible for coverage under the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, described prenatal care as healthcare for the fetus-leaving the woman out of the equation altogether.
The attempt to vest fetuses with independent "personhood" reveals an anti-choice movement that is hedging its bets and counting on the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts to endorse a reversal of Roe v. Wade. The Bush Administration's nominees for federal judgeships have consistently shown hostility towards reproductive rights, lacking even one abortion rights supporter among its nominees for the federal courts, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America.
On May 22, Congress refused to lift a seven-year-old ban that prohibits American military women, as well as the dependant wives and daughters of male soldiers, from using their own funds to pay for an abortion at U.S. military hospitals. The abortion ban compromises the health and safety of American women serving their country and is particularly devastating for those stationed overseas, where safe abortion services may otherwise be unavailable.
By law, the U.S. government bans virtually all abortions at military medical facilities, making exceptions only in cases of rape, incest or life endangerment. A woman who falls outside these narrow exceptions must either travel to a medical facility in the United States or another country, or attempt to obtain an abortion in a local medical facility in the country in which she is stationed. All too often in these countries, abortions are unsafe or inaccessible because of language and other barriers.
One story, related by retired Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy in a letter written to members of Congress, describes some of the barriers women stationed overseas face:
"I was a battalion commander of an intelligence battalion in Augsburg, Germany, from 1986 until 1988. One day a noncommissioned officer (NCO), who was one of the battalion’s senior women, came into my office and asked for permission to take a day off later in the week and to have the same day off for a young soldier in the battalion. She said the soldier was pregnant and wanted an abortion - yet had no way to have an abortion at the U.S. Army medical facility in Augsburg. She had gotten information about a German clinic in another city, and they were going there for the procedure. The soldier did not have enough money to return to the USA for the abortion. Further, she did not want to have to tell her predicament to her chain of command in order to get the time and other assistance to go to the States. I told the NCO to go with her and to let me know when they had returned."
"Later the NCO told me that the experience had been both mortifying and painful….no pain killer of any sort was administered for the procedure; the modesty of this soldier and the other women at the clinic had been violated (due to different cultural expectations about nudity); and neither she nor the soldier understood German, and the instructions were given in almost unintelligible English. I believe that they were able to get some follow up care for the soldier at the U.S. Army medical facility. But it was a searing experience for all of us - that in a very vulnerable time, this American who was serving her country overseas could not count on the Army to give her the care she needed."
While the ban on U.S. funding of most abortions for women in the military has been in place since 1979, it was not until 1988 that the ban was extended to prohibit abortions that women paid for with personal funds. Lifted by President Clinton in 1993, the ban on privately funded abortions was reinstated in a 1996 Defense Department authorization bill.
Last year, opponents of this ban made some headway when the Senate voted to overturn it by a vote of 52-40. Unfortunately this year, the amendment offered by Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) to lift the ban was rejected 51-48.
"It is appalling that Congress has decided to continue violating the rights of the very servicewomen who are sacrificing themselves to secure these kinds of freedoms for others," said Nancy Northup, President of the Center for Reproductive Rights. "Punishing American women for choosing to serve our country is no way to support the troops."
In May, Congress passed a landmark $15 billion HIV/AIDS (PDF) assistance bill, but not without mandatory expenditures for abstinence-only education and "conscience" clauses that could undermine the program’s effectiveness in aiding countries hardest hit by the disease.
The AIDS funds will target Botswana, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, as well as Guyana and Haiti.
The bill authorizes $15 billion to be spent over five years for AIDS treatment and prevention, and care for orphans who lost one or both parents to the disease. However, anti-choice lawmakers included language that requires that at least one-third of the prevention funds to be earmarked for abstinence-only education programs—an estimated $200 million per year. These programs inhibit discussion or education about condoms as part of an HIV/AIDS prevention strategy.
"This provision ties the hands of organizations on the frontlines of HIV/AIDS prevention," said Nancy Northup, President of the Center for Reproductive Rights. "In countries the U.S. program will target, women’s and girls’ lack of access to equal education and economic opportunities often means that they end up having sex with infected men, with no real choice to ‘abstain.’"
Supporters of the abstinence-only requirement have repeatedly cited the success of Uganda’s "ABC" strategy (Abstinence, Be Faithful, and Condoms) to prevent HIV/AIDS, choosing to ignore the critical third component of promoting access to condoms. Uganda has reduced its HIV prevalence rate among sexually active adults to 5% from upwards of 30%.
The bill also includes "conscience clause" language that would allow groups to refuse to provide comprehensive, accurate information about condoms or other prevention services because of moral or religious objection. There is nothing in the bill that would prevent these organizations from exploiting this loophole to propagate misinformation about the importance of condom use to slow the spread of the disease.
The Senate’s anti-choice leadership forced a vote in the early morning of May 16 to block amendments to the bill that not only would remove the abstinence-only education requirement, but also would ensure that any information organizations provide on condoms be unbiased, complete and medically accurate.
A positive development in the House version of the bill came with the inclusion of Representative Joseph Crowley’s (D-NY) amendment recommending that funds be used to change men’s attitudes toward women and increase women’s access to employment opportunities.
The Center for Reproductive Rights remains concerned, however, that President George W. Bush will expand the "Global Gag Rule" to the HIV/AIDS funding. The gag rule denies U.S. funds to organizations that use their own money to provide abortions, lobby their governments to reform abortion law, or even offer accurate medical counseling or abortion referrals.
Bush Administration officials stated in April that, as a "compromise," they would allow an international organization to receive AIDS money as long as its abortion and family planning programs were conducted and financed separately.
"This is not a compromise," said Northup. "Some of the very best initiatives that provide comprehensive reproductive health services under one roof - including access to HIV counseling and condoms, family planning, and maternal health care - could be excluded from U.S. funding as a result."
Northup added, "The trend in providing integrated services did not take hold by accident, but through the agreement of the international community and health experts that this is the most effective way to provide reproductive and sexual health services to women."
