Schenken Suzanne O’Dea. From Suffrage to the Senate: An Encyclopedia of American Women in Politics (2 Volumes)

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But at the same time, when the issue of the design patent extension for the

United Daughters of the Confederacy first came up, I looked at it. I did not make

a big deal of it. It came as part of the work of the Judiciary Committee. I looked

at it, and I said, well, I am not going to vote for that.

When I announced I was not going to vote for it, the chairman, as is his due,

began to poll the members. We talked about it, and I found myself getting drawn

into a debate that I frankly never expected.

Who would have expected a design patent for the Confederate flag? And

there are those in this body who say this really is not the Confederate flag. The

other thing we did know was a Confederate flag.

I did my research, and I looked it up as I am wont to do, and guess what?

That is the real Confederate flag. The thing we see all the time and are accustomed

to is the battle flag. In fact, there is some history on this issue. I would like to read

the following quote from the Flag Book of the United States.

The real flower in the southern flag began in November 1860, when the

election of Lincoln to the Presidency caused widespread fear the federal govern-

ment will try to make changes in the institution of slavery. The winter of 1860 to

1861, rallies and speeches were held throughout the South and, frankly, the

United States flag was replaced by a local banner.

This flag is the real flag of the Confederacy. If there is anybody in this cham-

ber, anybody, indeed anybody in this world, that has a doubt that the Confeder-

ate effort was around preserving the institution of slavery, I am prepared and I

believe history is prepared to dispute them to the nth. There is no question but

that battle was fought to try to preserve our nation, to keep the states from sepa-

rating themselves over the issue of whether or not my ancestors could be held as

property, as chattel, as objects of commerce and trade in this country.

And people died. More Americans died in the Civil War than any war they

have ever gone through since. People died over the proposition that indeed these

United States stood for the proposition that every person was created equal with-

out regard to race, that we are all American citizens.

I am sorry, Madam President. I will lower my voice. I am getting excited, be-

cause, quite frankly, that is the very issue. The issue is whether or not Americans,

such as myself, who believe in the promise of this country, who feel strongly and

who are patriots in this country, will have to suffer the indignity of being re-

minded time and time again, that at one point in this country’s history we were

human chattel. We were property. We could be traded, bought, and sold.

Now, to suggest as a matter of revisionist history that this flag is not about

slavery flies in the face of history, Madam President.

I was not going to get inflammatory. In fact, my staff brought me this little

thing earlier, and it has been sitting here. I do not know if you noticed it sitting

here during the earlier debate in which I was dispassionate and tried my level

best not to be emotional and lawyering about and not get into calling names and

talking about race and racism. I did not use it to begin with. I do want to share it

now. It is a speech by the Vice President of the Confederate States of America,

March 21, 1861, in Savannah, GA.

“Slavery, the Cornerstone of the Confederacy.” And this man goes on to say:

“The new Confederate constitution has put to rest forever all agitating ques-

tions relating to our peculiar ‘institution,’ which is what they called it, African

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slavery as it exists among us, the proper status of a negro in our form of civiliza-

tion. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.

The prevailing ideas entertained by Thomas Jefferson and most of the lead-

ing statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were that the

enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature, that it was

wrong in principle, socially; morally; and politically.”

And then he goes on to say:

“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea. Its foun-

dations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not

equal to the white man, that slavery, subordination to the superior race is his nat-

ural and moral condition.”

This was a statement by the Vice President of the Confederate States of

America.

Madam President, across the room on the other side is the flag. I say to you

it is outrageous. It is an absolute outrage that this body would adopt as an amend-

ment to this legislation a symbol of this point of view and, Madam President, I

say to you that it is an important issue. It is a symbolic issue up there. There is no

way you can get around it.

The reason for my emotion—I have been here almost 7 months now, and

my colleagues will tell you there is not a more congenial, laid back, even person

in this entire body who makes it a point to try to get along with everybody. I make

it a point to try to talk to my colleagues and get beyond controversy and conflict,

to try to find consensus on issues.

But I say to you, Madam President, on this issue there can be no consensus.

It is an outrage. It is an insult. It is absolutely unacceptable to me and to millions

of Americans, black or white, that we would put the imprimatur of the United

States Senate on a symbol of this kind of idea. And that is what is at stake with

this amendment, Madam President.

I am going to continue—I am going to continue because I am going to call

it like I see it, as I always do. I was appalled, appalled at a segment of my own

Democratic Party that would go take a walk and vote for something like this.

I am going to talk for a minute first about my brethren, my close-in

brethren and then talk about the other side of the aisle and the responsibility of

the Republican Party.

The reason the Republican Party got run out on a rail the last time is the

American people sensed intolerance in that party. The American people, African-

Americans sensed there was not room for them in that party. Folks took a look at

the convention and said,“My God, what are these people standing for? This is not

America.” And they turned around and voted for change. They elected Bill Clin-

ton president and the rest of us to this chamber. The changes they were speaking

out for was a change that said we have to get past racism, we have to get past sex-

ism, the many issues that divide us as Americans, and come together as Ameri-

cans so we can make this country be what it can be in the 21st century.

That is the real reason, Madam President, that I am here today. My state has

less than 12 percent African-Americans in it, but the people of Illinois had no

problem voting for a candidate that was African-American because they thought

they were doing the same thing.

Similarly, the state of California sent two women, two women to the U.S.

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Senate, breaking a gender barrier, as did the state of Washington. Why? Because

they felt that it was time to get past the barriers that said that women had no place

in the conduct of our business.

And so, just as our country is moving forward, Madam President, to have

this kind of symbol shoved in your face, shoved in my face, shoved in the faces of

all the Americans who want to see a change for us to get beyond racism, is singu-

larly inappropriate.

I say to you, Madam President, that this is no small matter. This is not a

matter of little old ladies walking around doing good deeds. There is no reason

why these little old ladies cannot do good deeds anyway. If they choose to wave

the Confederate flag, that certainly is their right. Because I care about the fact that

this is a free country. Free speech is the cornerstone of democracy. People are sup-

posed to be able to say what they want to say. They are supposed to be able to join

associations and organizations that express their views.

But I daresay, Madam President, that following the Civil War, and following

the victory of the United States and the coming together of our country, that that

peculiar institution was put to rest for once and for all; that the division in our

nation, the North versus the South, was put to rest once and for all. And the peo-

ple of this country do not want to see a day in which flags like that are under-

written, underscored, adopted, approved by this U.S. Senate.

That is what this vote is about. That is what this vote is about.

I say to you, Madam President, I do not know—I do not want to yield the

floor right now because I do not know what will happen next.

I will yield momentarily to my colleague from California, Madam President,

because I think that this is an issue that I am not going—if I have to stand here

until this room freezes over, I am not going to see this amendment put on this

legislation which has to do with national service....IfI have to stand here until

this room freezes over, Madam President, I am going to do so. Because I will tell

you, this is something that has no place in our modern times. It has no place in

this body. It has no place in the Senate. It has no place in our society.

And the fact is, Madam President, that I would encourage my colleagues on

both sides of the aisle—Republican and Democrat; those who thought, “Well, we

are just going to do this, you know, because it is no big deal”—to understand

what a very big deal indeed it is—that the imprimatur that is being sought here

today sends a sign out to the rest of this country that that peculiar institution has

not been put to bed for once and for all; that, indeed, like Dracula, it has come

back to haunt us time and time and time again; and that, in spite of the fact that

we have made strides forward, the fact of the matter is that there are those who

would keep us slipping back into the darkness of division, into the snake pit of

racial hatred, of racial antagonism and of support for symbols—symbols of the

struggle to keep African-Americans, Americans of African descent, in bondage.

Speech at the March on Washington, Urvashi Vaid, 1993

Hello lesbian and gay Americans. I am proud to stand before you as a lesbian to-

day. With hearts full of love and the abiding faith in justice, we have come to

Washington to speak to America. We have come to speak the truth of our lives

and silence the liars. We have come to challenge the cowardly Congress to end its

paralysis and exercise moral leadership. We have come to defend our honor and

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win our equality. But most of all we have come in peace and with courage to say,

“America, this day marks the end from exile of the gay and lesbian people. We are

banished no more. We wander the wilderness of despair no more. We are afraid

no more. For on this day, with love in our hearts, we have come out, and we have

come out across America to build a bridge of understanding, a bridge of progress,

a bridge as solid as steel, a bridge to a land where no one suffers prejudice because

of their sexual orientation, their race, their gender, their religion, or their human

difference.”

I have been asked by the March organizers to speak in five minutes about

the far right, the far right which threatens the construction of that bridge. The ex-

treme right which has targeted every one of you and me for extinction. The su-

premacist right which seeks to redefine the very meaning of democracy. Language

itself fails in this task, my friends, for to call our opponents “The Right,” states a

profound untruth. They are wrong—they are wrong morally, they are wrong

spiritually, and they are wrong politically.

The Christian supremacists are wrong spiritually when they demonize us.

They are wrong when they reduce the complexity and beauty of our spirit into a

freak show. They are wrong spiritually, because, if we are the untouchables of

America—if we are the untouchables—then we are, as Mahatma Gandhi said,

children of God. And as God’s children we know that the gods of our under-

standing, the gods of goodness and love and righteousness, march right here with

us today.

The supremacists who lead the anti-gay crusade are wrong morally. They

are wrong because justice is moral, and prejudice is evil; because truth is moral

and the lie of the closet is the real sin; because the claim of morality is a subtle

sort of subterfuge, a stratagem which hides the real aim which is much more sec-

ular. Christian supremacist leaders like Bill Bennett and Pat Robertson, Lou Shel-

don and Pat Buchanan, supremacists like Phyllis Schlafly, Ralph Reid, Bill Bristol,

R.J. Rushoodie—the supremacists don’t care about morality, they care about

power. They care about social control. And their goal, my friends, is the recon-

struction of American Democracy into American Theocracy.

We who are gathered here today must prove the religious right wrong polit-

ically and we can do it. That is our challenge. You know they have made us into

the communists of the nineties. And they say they have declared cultural war

against us. It’s war all right. It’s a war about values. On one side are the values that

everyone here stands for. Do you know what those values are? Traditional Amer-

ican values of democracy and pluralism. On the other side are those who want to

turn the Christian church into government, those whose value is monotheism.

We believe in democracy, in many voices co-existing in peace, and people of

all faiths living together in harmony under a common civil framework known as

the United States Constitution. Our opponents believe in monotheism. One way,

theirs. One god, theirs. One law, the Old Testament. One nation supreme, the

Christian Right one. Let’s name it. Democracy battles theism in Oregon, in Col-

orado, in Florida, in Maine, in Arizona, in Michigan, in Ohio, in Idaho, in Wash-

ington, in Montana, in every state where my brothers and sisters are leading the

fight to oppose the Right and to defend the United States Constitution. We won

the anti-gay measure in Oregon, but today 33 counties—33 counties and munic-

ipalities face local versions of that ordinance today. The fight has just begun. We

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lost the big fight in Colorado, but, thanks to the hard work of all the people of

Colorado, the Boycott Colorado movement is working and we are strong. And we

are going to win our freedom there eventually.

To defeat the Right politically, my friends, is our challenge when we leave

this March. How can we do it? We’ve got to march from Washington into action

at home. I challenge every one of you, straight or gay, who can hear my voice, to

join the national gay and lesbian movement. I challenge you to join NGLTF to

fight the Right. We have got to match the power of the Christian supremacists,

member for member, vote for vote, dollar for dollar. I challenge each of you, not

just buy a T-shirt, but get involved in your movement. Get involved! Volunteer!

Volunteer! Every local organization in this country needs you. Every clinic, every

hotline, every youth program needs you, needs your time and your love.

And I also challenge our straight liberal allies, liberals and libertarians, in-

dependent and conservative, republican or radical. I challenge and invite you to

open your eyes and embrace us without fear. The gay rights movement is not a

party. It is not lifestyle. It is not a hair style. It is not a fad or a fringe or a sickness.

It is not about sin or salvation. The gay rights movement is an integral part of the

American promise of freedom.

We, you and I, each of us, we are the descendants of a proud tradition of

people asserting our dignity. It is fitting that the Holocaust Museum was dedi-

cated the same weekend as this March, for not only were gay people persecuted

by the Nazi state, but gay people are indebted to the struggle of the Jewish people

against bigotry and intolerance. It is fitting that the NAACP marches with us, that

feminist leaders march with us, because we are indebted to those movements.

When all of us who believe in freedom and diversity see this gathering, we

see beauty and power. When our enemies see this gathering, they see the millen-

nium. Perhaps the Right is right about something. We call for the end of the

world as we know it. We call for the end of racism and sexism and bigotry as we

know it. For the end of violence and discrimination and homophobia as we know

it. For the end of sexism as we know it. We stand for freedom as we have yet to

know it, and we will not be denied.

This speech was given at the march on Washington, April 25, 1993. Reprinted

by permission.

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Women’s Reproductive Lives

A persistently controversial issue in the twentieth century has been women’s repro-

ductive lives. Initially, the issue was women’s access to contraceptive methods, in-

cluding information about birth control and methods and devices for it. The state

and federal Comstock Laws, the first of which was passed in 1873, classified infor-

mation about birth control as obscene material. Birth control leader Margaret

Sanger began her crusade against the Comstock Laws in the 1910s. Sanger placed

birth control in the context of women freeing themselves from the bondage of un-

wanted pregnancies that threatened their health or that reduced them to poverty.

In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Connecticut law prohibiting the

dissemination and use of contraceptives. In deciding the case, Griswold v. Con-

necticut, the Court found that a right to privacy was implied in the Constitution,

providing the basis for its 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that

legalized abortion in the United States. For the balance of the twentieth century,

abortion, limitations on it, access to the procedure, and other nuances of the issue led

to the creation of new organizations, stirred political debates, and played a signifi-

cant role in deciding numerous elections.

Faye Wattleton, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in her

speech to employees of the Esprit corporation in 1990, points to the importance of

protecting and preserving the right to abortion and other liberties. Feminists have

been among the most adamant groups to advocate reproductive freedom, often ar-

guing that it is a matter of a woman being able to control her own life. Some femi-

nists, however, disagree and have aligned themselves with Feminists for Life of Amer-

ica (FFLA), a prolife, feminist organization. Former vice president of FFLA Frederica

Mathewes-Green’s feminist beliefs led her to becoming a prolife activist.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, prolife advocates have

sought to limit access to abortion by requiring waiting periods, requiring minors to

obtain their parents’ permission, and other measures. In the 1990s, attempts to ban

a specific abortion procedure known as partial-birth abortion became a volatile po-

litical issue. Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-ID) supports the ban, as she explained to

FFLA in 1997. Gloria Feldt, current president of Planned Parenthood Federation of

America, discusses how some of those attempts to limit access to abortion impact

women’s health care in a larger context.

Birth Control—A Parents’ Problem or Woman’s? Margaret Sanger, 1920

The problem of birth control has arisen directly from the effort of the feminine

spirit to free itself from bondage. Woman herself has wrought that bondage

through her reproductive powers and while enslaving herself has enslaved the

world. The physical suffering to be relieved is chiefly woman’s. Hers, too, is the

love life that dies first under the blight of too prolific breeding. Within her is

wrapped up the future of the race—it is hers to make or mar. All of these consid-

erations point unmistakably to one fact—it is woman’s duty as well as her privi-

lege to lay hold of the means of freedom. Whatever men may do, she cannot es-

cape the responsibility. For ages she has been deprived of the opportunity to meet

this obligation. She is now emerging from her helplessness. Even as no one can

share the suffering of the overburdened mother, so no one can do this work for

her. Others may help, but she and she alone can free herself.

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The basic freedom of the world is woman’s freedom. A free race cannot be

born of slave mothers. A woman enchained cannot choose but give a measure of

that bondage to her sons and daughters. No woman can call herself free who does

not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can

choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.

It does not greatly alter the case that some women call themselves free be-

cause they earn their own livings, while others profess freedom because they

defy the conventions of sex relationship. She who earns her own living gains a

sort of freedom that is not to be undervalued, but in quality and in quantity it

is of little account beside the untrammeled choice of mating or not mating, of

being a mother or not being a mother. She gains food and clothing and shelter,

at least, without submitting to the charity of her companion, but the earning of

her own living does not give her the development of her inner sex urge, far

deeper and more powerful in its outworkings than any of these externals. In or-

der to have that development, she must still meet and solve the problem of

motherhood.

With the so-called “free” woman, who chooses a mate in defiance of con-

vention, freedom is largely a question of character and audacity. If she does attain

to an unrestricted choice of a mate, she is still in a position to be enslaved through

her reproductive powers. Indeed, the pressure of law and custom upon the

woman not legally married is likely to make her more of a slave than the woman

fortunate enough to marry the man of her choice.

Look at it from any standpoint you will, suggest any solution you will, con-

ventional or unconventional, sanctioned by law or in defiance of law, woman is

in the same position, fundamentally, until she is able to determine for herself

whether she will be a mother and to fix the number of her offspring. This un-

avoidable situation is alone enough to make birth control, first of all, a woman’s

problem. On the very face of the matter, voluntary motherhood is chiefly the con-

cern of the woman.

It is persistently urged, however, that since sex expression is the act of two,

the responsibility of controlling the results should not be placed upon woman

alone. Is it fair, it is asked, to give her, instead of the man, the task of protecting

herself when she is, perhaps, less rugged in physique than her mate, and has, at all

events, the normal, periodic inconveniences of her sex?

We must examine this phase of her problem in two lights—that of the ideal,

and of the conditions working toward the ideal. In an ideal society, no doubt,

birth control would become the concern of the man as well as the woman. The

hard, inescapable fact which we encounter to-day is that man has not only refused

any such responsibility, but has individually and collectively sought to prevent

woman from obtaining knowledge by which she could assume this responsibility

for herself. She is still in the position of a dependent to-day because her mate has

refused to consider her as an individual apart from his needs. She is still bound

because she has in the past left the solution of the problem to him. Having left it

to him, she finds that instead of rights, she has only such privileges as she has

gained by petitioning, coaxing and cozening. Having left it to him, she is ex-

ploited, driven and enslaved to his desires.

While it is true that he suffers many evils as the consequence of this situa-

tion, she suffers vastly more. While it is true that he should be awakened to the

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cause of these evils, we know that they come home to her with crushing force

every day. It is she who has the long burden of carrying, bearing and rearing the

unwanted children....It is her heart that the sight of the deformed, the sub-

normal, the undernourished, the overworked child smites first and oftenest and

hardest. It is her love life that dies first in the fear of undesired pregnancy. It is

her opportunity for self expression that perishes first and most hopelessly be-

cause of it.

Conditions, rather than theories, facts, rather than dreams, govern the

problem. They place it squarely upon the shoulders of woman. She has learned

that whatever the moral responsibility of the man in this direction may be, he

does not discharge it. She has learned that, lovable and considerate as the indi-

vidual husband may be, she has nothing to expect from men in the mass, when

they make laws and decree customs. She knows that regardless of what ought to

be, the brutal, unavoidable fact is that she will never receive her freedom until she

takes it for herself.

Having learned this much, she has yet something more to learn. Women are

too much inclined to follow in the footsteps of men, to try to think as men think,

to try to solve the general problems of life as men solve them. If after attaining

their freedom, women accept conditions in the spheres of government, industry,

art, morals and religion as they find them, they will be but taking a leaf out of

man’s book. The woman is not needed to do man’s work. She is not needed to

think man’s thoughts. She need not fear that the masculine mind, almost univer-

sally dominant, will fail to take care of its own. Her mission is not to enhance the

masculine spirit, but to express the feminine; hers is not to preserve a man-made

world, but to create a human world by the infusion of the feminine element into

all of its activities.

Woman must not accept; she must challenge. She must not be awed by that

which has been built up around her; she must reverence that within her which

struggles for expression. Her eyes must be less upon what is and more clearly

upon what should be. She must listen only with a frankly questioning attitude to

the dogmatized opinions of man-made society. When she chooses her new, free

course of action, it must be in the light of her own opinion—of her own intu-

ition. Only so can she give play to the feminine spirit. Only thus can she free her

mate from the bondage which he wrought for himself when he wrought hers.

Only thus can she restore to him that of which he robbed himself in restricting

her. Only thus can she remake the world....

Woman must have her freedom—the fundamental freedom of choosing

whether or not she shall be a mother and how many children she will have. Re-

gardless of what man’s attitude may be, that problem is hers—and before it can

be his, it is hers alone.

She goes through the vale of death alone, each time a babe is born. As it is

the right neither of man nor the state to coerce her into this ordeal, so it is her

right to decide whether she will endure it. That right to decide imposes upon her

the duty of clearing the way to knowledge by which she may make and carry out

the decision.

Birth control is woman’s problem. The quicker she accepts it as hers and

hers alone, the quicker will society respect motherhood. The quicker, too, will the

world be made a fit place for her children to live.

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From Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race (New York: Brentano,

1920), pp. 93–100.

Reproductive Freedom: Fundamental to All Human Rights, Faye Wattleton, 1990

I love to visit northern California, everyone here is so health-conscious and out-

doorsy. I’ve heard that’s especially true of Esprit people, so I think you’ll appreci-

ate a sports tidbit I read recently. Bicycling magazine polled its readers and learned

that 84% daydream about sex while they’re cycling. Somehow I wasn’t surprised.

But then I read that 20% daydream about cycling while they’re having sex!

Well, I won’t ask for a show of hands here, but I think it’s safe to say that sex

is important to most of us! Whatever our age or circumstances, we all make sex-

ual decisions—and we cherish the freedom to make those decisions privately,

without meddling or coercion.

The freedom to chart our reproductive destinies is a more recent acquisition

than you might think. As late as 1965, contraception was still illegal in most of the

U.S. Before then, biology was still destiny. Women were economically deprived

and socially dependent. And men suffered too, saddled with children they could

not feed or clothe.

In this day and age, control over our reproduction is a given. Women and

men can plan our futures because we can plan our child-bearing. This dramatic

advance is just one of the many steps forward our nation has made in recent

decades, including enormous progress in human rights, women’s rights, civil

rights, children’s rights.

But today we look down the road toward the future and we see warning

signs: “Danger ahead!” The danger isn’t limited to our reproductive liberty, either;

we see threats to our very progress as a democratic, pluralistic society. A tyranni-

cal minority is determined to reverse the changes that were achieved in my gen-

eration. They want to tell us which forms of speech are censored, which books we

may read, which music and art we may enjoy, even which God to pray to. Armed

with Puritanical moralism, they have set out to control everything they view as

obscene.

This crackdown on free expression will have a cataclysmic impact on our

fundamental rights. This is not the America I know and love!

Around the world, nations are steering toward greater freedom for all citizens,

holding our constitutional ideals as their compass—while here at home, we fight

not to lose ideals. Is this the America we want to see as we end the 20th century?

The framers of our Constitution established the ideal of fundamental free-

doms, freedoms that would endure in an ever-changing society, freedoms far re-

moved from the reach of politicians. The Bill of Rights plainly states that “the

enumeration [in] the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to

deny or disparage others retained by the people.” In plain talk, that is, the framers

didn’t want to spell out every one of our liberties. They didn’t want to limit our

freedoms to their day and age, with no room for expansion!

Given how different life was in those days, I’m glad! Let’s remember that

Washington and Jefferson owned slaves! Their wives didn’t vote! For all we know,

they weren’t even convinced the world was really round!

With few exceptions, rights have been expanded for the disenfranchised:

women, minorities, children, the disabled. Americans have come to take it for

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granted that our right to decide when and if to reproduce is as fundamental as

our right to free speech or to assemble in this room! Nine out of 10 Americans

believe that right is constitutionally guaranteed. For 18 years, since the Roe v.

Wade decision, we’ve counted on constitutional protection for our right to con-

trol our fertility.

But today, we are fighting to hold onto these most basic freedoms. The Rea-

gan-dominated Supreme Court has thrown these rights into chaos.

First, women’s access to abortion was restricted in the case called Webster, in

July 1989. A year later, the court handed down the Ohio and Hodgson rulings,

which allowed states to require parental notification for teens seeking abortions.

All three rulings have created more restrictive standards by which all abortion

laws will be judged. And though they target the most vulnerable women, the

young and the poor, these rulings threaten all women.

I want to focus briefly on the teen cases, and the dangerous idea of legislat-

ing family communication. Parents should be involved in teens’ important deci-

sions, and their sexual decisions are no exception. I can personally identify with

this. My daughter Felicia and I always discuss sexuality issues openly, only these

days, I’m the one asking most of the questions! But compulsory communication

is no joke. Besides, it doesn’t work. It only disrupts families, forces young women

to lie, and destroys young lives.

Instead of legislating family behavior, we should spend more time and re-

sources on helping families communicate better. Laws should be aimed at giving

our young people greater opportunities, not on treating them like property. If Fe-

licia ever became pregnant and felt she couldn’t involve me, I’d be hurt and sad-

dened. But she’s lived with me for 15 years. She knows me a little better than gov-

ernment regulators. If she couldn’t come to me, the last thing I’d want is the

government coming to her!

The government has no business telling any of us what to do with our pri-

vate lives or our family lives! Teen or adult, rich or poor, black, brown, or white,

any female able to become pregnant must be able to prevent pregnancy and to

choose whether or not to end pregnancy. The government should stay out of it.

No human right is more basic than our right to reproductive freedom. And

no human right is so gravely threatened. The late Supreme Court Justice Louis

Brandeis once wrote that “the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious en-

croachment by men of zeal—well-meaning, but without understanding.” When

it comes to the anti-choice extremists, that description may be overly charitable!

This isn’t really a struggle over abortion. It’s over controlling women and

controlling our sexuality. Otherwise, why would the extremists be intent on elim-

inating sexuality education and contraception?

The most damaging evidence of their true agenda is their attack on Title X,

the federal family planning program that helps prevent 516,000 abortions each

year. This attack comes in the form of a so-called gag rule imposed by President

Reagan in 1988. The gag rule says that publicly funded clinics can’t give a preg-

nant woman any information on abortion, even if continuing the pregnancy

threatens her health! If one of you were a patient in one of these clinics, the staff

wouldn’t be able to tell you abortion is an option! They couldn’t refer you to

someone who would tell you! They couldn’t even lend you the “Yellow Pages” so

you could look up an abortion provider on your own!

798 Documents