Molly Ivins November 11

AUSTIN — There seem to be an awful lot of Republicans in Washington who think their sole mission in life is to mess with President Clinton. A global gag rule — what a concept. You tell me: Does this make any sense at all?

Here's the deal: Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) pops up with an amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill that would cut off all funding for family planning services all over the world if the organizations that provide family planning also provide abortion services or do any kind of advocacy concerning abortion, even when the money for such activities comes from other sources entirely. This includes multilateral family planning groups and private organizations.

Under current law, none of the family planning money provided by the United States can be used for abortions or abortion advocacy, and according to Population Action, an umbrella advocacy group, repeated audits have failed to find a single instance of this law being violated.

So, no taxpayer money currently goes to fund abortions abroad, but Republican zealots want to fix it so that family planning outfits around the world get no money for contraception programs if they also provide abortions with funds from other sources or even refer women to programs that do provide abortions.

What is the result of cutting contraceptive services? More unwanted pregnancies. What is the result of more unwanted pregnancies? More abortions. As has been proved time and again, that's more abortions, whether they are safe and legal or not.

Although the money we send to these programs is minuscule even by non-Washington standards, it does help provide family planning for tens of millions of women around the world. This is one of the best value-for-money programs on Earth. Desperately poor women who already have six, eight, 10, 12 children will be driven to the most extreme measures, often leading to their own deaths. Their chances of providing adequate food, education and a decent life for the children they already have will be decimated. There is nothing theoretical about this. We've seen it, we know it happens, we can prove it.

Two years ago, the U.S. international family planning programs were cut by close to $200 million. The Senate version of the foreign appropriations bill restores $50 million of that, for a total of $435 million for fiscal '98 (by a government that spends perhaps $2 billion for one airplane).

This maliciously stupid amendment is now by being used by the House Republican leadership as a bargaining chip, a condition of Republican support for Clinton's fast-track free-trade legislation.

Only the most extreme anti-abortion groups favor this amendment; many legislators who oppose abortion are also opposed to this folly. But Republicans are increasingly letting extremist groups set their policies on all kinds of issues.

For instance: The deliberate policy of blocking Clinton's nominations for the federal bench is being driven by an outfit called the Judicial Selection Monitoring Project. According to columnist Tony Lewis of The New York Times, this extreme-right organization is behind many of the attacks of recent judicial nominees. The group produced a videotape describing Clinton's overwhelmingly centrist nominees as "liberal activists," using as its main horrible example a judge appointed by George Bush.

Michael Schattman of Fort Worth, whose nomination to the bench has been held up for two years now, sent a copy of the tape to other nominees who are also in limbo. Incredibly enough, the head of the outfit then accused Schattman of "a fanatical desire to stifle debate and undermine our organization." There is a sort of farcical lunacy to all this.

The nomination of Bill Lann Lee, a remarkably decent and well-qualified fellow, to run the civil-rights division at the Department of Justice, was sailing along just fine. Conservative Republicans like Sen. Orrin Hatch had no problem with the guy.

Then, Clinton Bolick, a right-wing activist who heads something misnamed the Institute for Justice, starts trashing Lee, who has never done anything but hold up existing law in his life. (One of Lee's most famous cases was a settlement with the Los Angeles Police Department for discrimination against female officers, helped along by the discovery that Mark Fuhrman, of all people, had started an organization within the police department called "Men Against Women.")

In the long run, such stupidity can only hurt the Republicans; most Americans no more favor such extremism than they can take wing and fly. But, in the meantime, the lives of millions of women can be damaged and even destroyed by right-wing zealots so blinded by self-righteousness that they cannot see reality in front of them. It's one thing to mess around with Clinton for the fun of watching him squirm; it's something else to damage women's lives.

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Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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