NARAL's Choice
A few years ago, the National Abortion Rights Action League, as it was then called, or NARAL for short, changed its name to NARAL Pro-Choice America. The idea, as I understood it, was to put the emphasis on "choice" rather than "abortion." This week, the organization announced its own choice in the Democratic primary contest, and as best as I can tell, it had absolutely nothing to do with preserving abortion rights and everything to do with their own sense of self-importance. Many women I know who have given generously of their time and efforts and money to the organization over the years are furious, and I don't blame them.
If the issue is choice, and it should be for NARAL Pro-Choice America, there is absolutely no reason to prefer Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. There's no reason to assume he will stand taller when it comes to legislative efforts to limit abortion rights or outlaw particular procedures. There's no reason to believe that he will appoint judges who will be more sympathetic to Roe v. Wade or more understanding of the plights of the poor, the young, of women from rural areas and those serving in the military (or married to men who are) and those who discover late in their pregnancies that the babies they very much wanted cannot survive. These are, of course, the women who have been targeted successfully by anti-abortion groups in recent years both in the legislatures, state and federal, and in the courts and for whom access to abortion is an abstract promise rather than a constitutionally guaranteed right. These are the women who should be the focus of all the energy, clout and attention a group such as NARAL Pro-Choice America has. That's the very reason the group exists.
But clearly, that wasn't enough for the leadership of NARAL. They wanted to be players in the presidential game. So they made a choice between two candidates who differ not at all on abortion rights, choosing to make themselves look important on a day when, having taken a thumping in West Virginia from precisely the sort of women NARAL should represent, Barack Obama was looking for friends to send a message to Hillary Clinton and the media that West Virginia didn't matter and that it was time for her to exit the race.
"What does NARAL get from Obama?" some of my friends keep asking me. What could he have promised them that would lead them to turn their back on the first woman to make a serious run for the presidency, not to mention a woman who has stood with women's rights activists throughout her career, fought for health care for women and children, and whose help they desperately will need in future fights, even if, especially if, she ends up after this election, as she was before, as an influential senator? Was all this for a platform plank on abortion? No. We, and by "we," I mean Gloria Steinem, the late Bella Abzug, Eleanor Smeal and me, with some help from Sen. Ted Kennedy (whose team, which I was leading, didn't officially call the vote but encouraged our supporters to go for it), did that in 1980, and it's been there since.
No, this wasn't about platform planks or future jobs, not as far as I can tell. It was about the Obama supporters on the board outnumbering the Clinton backers and forgetting which hats they were wearing, that they were supposed to be putting the organization ahead of their partisan pursuits, and doing what was best for the cause, not their candidate.
Does anyone care that NARAL endorsed Obama? I'm not sure voters in Kentucky or Oregon will care. I'm not sure how many uncommitted superdelegates will care. But I know this: NARAL members who support Hillary, of whom there are many, judging just from my e-mails, care a lot. They won't be supporting NARAL in the future. And if, as I fear, the major battles to come for abortion rights are likely to take place in the Senate, I sure wouldn't want to be the lobbyist from NARAL who is assigned to make sure that Hillary is willing to stand tall. Again. I know she will. But no thanks to them.
To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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9 Comments | Post Comment
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you used to be honest before hillary started running. i would not have thought this of you except the reverseal of your journalistic ethic is obvious. like her, you will say anything to get her elected.
Comment: #1
Posted by: floyd howard, jr.
Fri May 16, 2008 4:30 PM
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Wow. I'm speechless. Thanks for writing this important column. One of the main reasons I've always supported Sen. Clinton is her long history of fighting for women's rights. I've been alarmed at people who label themselves progressives would support the candidacy of Barack Obama, whose sexist slurs meet every definition of bigotry.
And NARAL's endorsement is appalling - Barack has a record alright - a record of middling and waffling support on abortion rights, supporting them sometimes, and evading the issue by voting "present" on others.
When the radio guy (forgot his name) made that racist comment about the women basketball players, Sen. Clinton decried that behavior immediately. Barack waffled and waited days until the radio station suspended him and only then did Barack dare to denounce the insult.
I agree that NARAL was not acting in the interests of the organization, for which I've volunteered for the last 20 years. I used to interview politicians for a state NARAL endorsement committee and Barack's weak record would never have propelled him past somone like Sen. Clinton.
And even though NARAL's endorsement should only be about choice and it shouldn't matter that Sen. Clinton is a woman, it's sad that for once we have an extremely qualified woman whose made it this close to the nomination only to have women's rights' groups turn away from her for a lesser qualified man.
A college buddy of mine is a deleagte for Sen. Clinton in the Washington State caucuses. She went to the caucuses only intending to vote for Sen. Clinton but when she looked around the room none of the other Clinton supporters were willing to publicly stand up for her. This, I believe in my soul, is what happened in Iowa. In our culture, strong women are still shamed. In a state like Iowa, standing up and publicly supporting a strong and, yes, sometimes aggressive woman, is tantamount to going to a Catholic convention with a pro-abortion sign.
Thanks for this important piece. It should scare people about our public shaming of the woman whose come closest to the most powerful position in our country - the fact that women not only allow it but participate in it only makes it worse. It sets us all back.
Lisa Nuss
www.howdareshe.com
Comment: #2
Posted by: lisa nuss
Sat May 17, 2008 5:29 PM
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hey sweetie, great column, but you should not be surprised, so-called feminists have consistently given liberal males the edge, so why not Obama. Bill Clinton, the Kennedys, who make Bill look like Trappist monk, have all been oohed and aahed over for years and there mysoginist behavior ignored. This latest is just another example: there is no difference between Clinton and Obama on women's issues and her experience and other credentials far exceed his, so what is the excuse, other than hopping on the bandwagon. Sad.
Comment: #3
Posted by: jack latona
Sun May 18, 2008 7:15 AM
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It seems to me that women's rights groups like NARAL and NOW tend to make the same mistakes over and over.
First: Rather than maintain a laser like focus on their founding purpose that is shared by all of their natural constituency, their leadership widens the scope of their purpose into other issues where there is disagreement among their own membership, thereby alienating their own natural constituency and diluting their power.
Second: They marry themselves to one political party. As a consequence, one party ignores them, and the other party takes them for granted.
Comment: #4
Posted by: Randall Morgan
Sun May 18, 2008 8:36 AM
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A column threatening political retribution? That is sad tact of a losing campaign and a flawed character response to the WILL OF THE ELECTORATE. It is time to move on and support the presumptive nominee. The losing nominee and her minions(long time psychophants) would do well to remember that such hubris never sells and always comes back on the one doing the threatening.
Maybe some introspection and sober thought that maybe the nominee and her campaign are responsible for the loss--not simply threatening those whose votes they wrongly took for granted. Will the next campaign Hillary undertakes remember the lessons of this loss or will they rely upon the threats of this column to DEMAND COMPLIANCE. PRIDE COMES BEFRE THE FALL -- and now it seems even after the fall. Good riddance...
Comment: #5
Posted by: cm
Sun May 18, 2008 3:54 PM
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Instead of worrying about preserving a 'right' to kill, people need to get out of the dark ages and worry about preserving the right of unborn children to life! The mother's life should not be more valuable simply because the mother is born and the child isn't. We need to be electing candidates who understand that all humans are created equal, and that the unborn deserve no less than the same rights everyone else has. Wake up and face it, life is life and murder is murder. And there are even many feminists who realize that women's rights should not include a right to kill another human being at will. IT'S NOT A CHOICE,IT'S A CHILD!!!!
Comment: #6
Posted by: chimel23
Tue May 20, 2008 6:08 AM
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As a Soldier, I take great umbrage with Ms. Estrich's implication that military families, with pregnancies for wharever reason will not make it to term, face a reduction of rights to terminate, or face protests from right-wing anti-abortion groups. First of all, in such cases, nearly ALL physicians would have no choice but to terminate anyway; it would be done at the hospital, not a private facility. In the case of the military, this is a non-issue; not only would any medical procedure be done FREE OF CHARGE (since that's a benefit of being military--kinda pokes a gaping hole in the "poverty" angle), it would be performed with the upmost dignity. Why, you ask? Because PRIVATE GROUPS CANNOT PICKET INSIDE MILITARY POSTS. Most larger posts have full-size hospitals, and those that don't would refer families to a civillian HOSPITAL, not an abortion clinic.
However you feel about Clinton, Obama, NARAL, abortion, whatever, that's your business. But before you invoke other people into your pissing contest, make sure you know what the hell you're talking about. I think I have enough on my plate without having to distill and cleanup some horse manure from some limousine liberal, who seems to care more about her reproductive rights and her sexual freedom, than poor women, Latino women, black women, rural women, Asian women, Islamic women...you get the point.
Comment: #7
Posted by: Therren Dunham
Wed May 21, 2008 10:06 AM
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What about the Roots of "Choice"???
What I say here is found in books that anyone can find on the Internet (www.amazon.com or www.bn.com) or rare bookstores. Do you realize that many women are supporting a group whose founder spoke highly of the Nazis' practices and teachings in the 1930s and 1940s, and who wrote books with racists wordings and ugly eugenics practices, such as getting rid of those kids who were deformed or had genetic problems?
What group and founder are I talking about? Let me give you some idea what this founder wrote in her books (yes, she is a woman). This female founder refers to people who are epileptics, feeble-minded, blind, deaf, mute, etc. as:
--> "...this dead weight of human waste..." that is "...the terrific cost to the community..."
This female says, "'Constructive' Eugenics...shows us that we are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all..."
Lovely, isn't it?
And then she refers to these problem people this way:
--> "Every single case of inherited defect, every malformed child, every congenitally tainted human being brought into this world is of infinite importance to that poor individual; but it is of scarcely less importance to the rest of us and to all of our children who must pay in one way or another for these biological and racial mistakes."
She also said that large families should kill some of their children so as to save "resources" for others.
How about this idea which is similar to the Nazis' propaganda during the 1930s?
--> "On its scientific side, Eugenics suggest the reestablishment of the balance between the fertility of the "fit" and the "unfit." "
In one of her publications, a magazine review, persons sympathetic to the Nazis' practices and even German Nazis themselves wrote articles for her. In other documents, she refers to the supremacy of the white race over the other races. Isn't great that she wrote side-by-side with those Nazis?
What are these books and materials to which I refer?
"The Pivot of Civilization"
"Woman and the New Race"
"The Birth Control Review"
Who is the author of this trash?
Who is this supporter of the Nazi eugenic practices?
MARGARET SANGER
Founder of PLANNED PARENTHOOD
Do people think that Jewish women are blind to Margaret Sanger's promotion of racial eugenics? Let me quote something from her that both she and Planned Parenthood standby:
--> "By education, by persuasion, by appeals to racial ethics and religious motives, the ardent Eugenicist hopes to increase the fertility of the "fit." "
Planned Parenthood refers to her as a Woman of Valor. Do you like that term? Not all of us Jewish women are now blind to what Planned Parenthood is doing to women all over the world. Are you?
AND note also that the Gay / Lesbian Groups ALL support Planned Parenthood WITHOUT any reservations also!
a Jewish woman who was deceived and attacked by Planned Parenthood and who also lost relatives in the Holocaust, thanks to Margaret Sanger
Comment: #8
Posted by: Catherine French
Wed May 21, 2008 11:34 AM
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To Catherine French:
Eugenics was a fashionable idea among many groups in the 1920s and '30s, including those who considered themselves "liberal" and "progressive." Margaret Sanger, in fact, was opposed to the more extreme eugenic practices of the Nazis, such as active euthanasia of the "unfit." In any case, how are Sanger's views of three-quarters of a century ago in any way relevant to Planned Parenthood and its mission today? Henry Ford was an anti-Semite. Does that mean Fords are bad cars?
Comment: #9
Posted by: Scot Penslar
Sun Jun 1, 2008 3:27 PM
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