Dark is This Long Night
Al Gore and the Democrats’ Sorry Record on Abortion
Rights
by Sunil Sharma
November 3, 2000
In the last couple of days
before the election, I would like to take the opportunity to remind wavering
Nader supporters – and especially Gore supporters -- of some important facts
about not only the Clinton/Gore Administration’s purported commitment to
abortion rights, but about the sorry state of mainstream feminist advocacy
politics in general. As election night approaches, many of us who support Nader
have been besieged by emails and letters from friends and unknowns urging us to
put aside our “idealism” and “cute” expressions of principle and now grow up
and be “pragmatic” by voting Gore. The tone of these correspondences, and
particularly phony progressive commentators like Eric Alterman at The
Nation, and the stable of moribund has-beens at In These Times, has
gotten downright vicious as the gloves have come off. It’s in times of trial
that people’s real colors come out, and indeed the most unalluring and
nauseating features of the parlor “progressive”, liberal elite now stand stark
naked for all to witness.
Pick any issue, foreign or
domestic, and the differences between the Democrats and the Republicans are
hard to find. With Clinton -- and even more so Al Gore -- we see the virtual consummation of the
symbiosis of the Democrats and the Republicans. What differences there are
between the two cheeks of the same rotten old ass are mostly disagreement over
what tactics should be used in the attainment of a narrow but shared elite
consensus as to how society should be run. Nevertheless, I feel sorry for the
Democrats because I can truly imagine how frustrating it must be to not get the
credit they deserve from the Republicans for implementing policies that
Reagan-Bush couldn’t have dreamed of getting away with. Actually, those of you
who have the same masochistic streak as I do and sometimes read the William F.
Buckley-founded National Review can’t fail to be struck by the nods of approval
Clinton-Gore often receive from them. A
few years ago, a frustrated Clinton told the press that the Republicans “should
erect a statue of me” since he succeeded in accomplishing what his Republican
predecessors were unable to do: eviscerate the New Deal, tort deform, the
racist and anti-civil libertarian Crime Bill, The Anti-Terrorism and Effective
Death Penalty Act which scaled back habeas corpus rights and greatly expanded
the list of crimes punishable by death, anti-environmentalism (with a
pro-environmental façade), NAFTA, WTO, and on and on. The lesson for would be
New-Democrats? If you want to get your just due from the Republicans, you just
have to join the Republican Party.
Anyway, the issue that keeps
coming up as an argument to vote Gore instead of Nader is abortion rights. Gore
flackers aver that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush, and a with a Bush presidency
the Visigoths will take over the Supreme Court and Roe v Wade will bite the
dust. The Supreme Court issue is a perennial scare tactic, “the last refuge of
Democratic scoundrels” as Alex Cockburn put it, with no real historical basis,
and is simply the foisting of a top-down mentality of how society works that no
erstwhile supporter of democracy and social justice should accept
We’re constantly told that
Gore (and the Democrats generally) is the pro-choice ticket. Gore has the
backing of the National Organization of Women (NOW), the National Abortion
Rights Action League (NARAL), Gloria Steinem, and Ellie Smeal’s Feminist
Majority, among others. NARAL has coughed up at least $500,000 to pay for
television ads “informing” voters that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush,
which by implication is an anti-choice vote. NARAL and NOW are especially
vicious against Nader, now having descended to being mere shills for the
DLC-Democratic Party.
As a Congressman, Gore was a
fervent supporter of the 1977 Hyde Amendment, which prohibited federal funding
for abortions. He even opposed language in an earlier version of the Hyde Bill
that granted exemptions from the ban in the case of rape. The Democrats were in
control of Congress at the time. Gore supported the even worse (though
thankfully failed) 1984 Siljander Amendment, which would have defined as a
“person” “unborn children from the moment of conception”, and would have banned
any federal funding to any clinic or hospital that performed an abortion.
Gore’s congressional anti-abortion stance earned him an 84% rating with the
Right to Life Committee. His numerous
letters to Tennessee constituents affirming his “deep conviction” that
“abortion is wrong,” that “innocent human life must be protected” and that he has
“an open mind on how to further this goal” is a matter of public record. I will
gladly email copies of these letters upon request.
So here is a guy who has
been an ardent foe of a woman’s right to choose, and NARAL supported him
earlier this year over Democratic Party presidential opponent Bill Bradley, who
as a senator voted pro-choice 100% of the time. Going back to 1984, the
Siljander Amendment was widely seen by lawmakers and abortion rights activists
as having sweeping implications. The amendment failed by a vote of 219-186.
Gore was one of the 74 Democrats who supported it. Gore and his allies insist
it was a funding vote. A NARAL news release from the time also described it as
a funding issue, noting that ''Some members, however, construed the amendment
as a vote on the controversial question of when life begins [it certainly
did!], although its passage would not have outlawed abortion in this country.''
(New York Times, 2/25/00) Whatever
the case, NARAL’s blasé reaction to the Amendment showed its (and its
candidate’s) lack of concern for poor women. We’ll get into a frenzy if middle
to upper class (mostly white) women’s abortion rights are threatened, but who
cares if it’s poor women. The Times
quotes NARAL President Kate Michelman as saying that Gore was ''someone who
cast votes we disagreed with.'' But she added, ''He never co-sponsored any of
the 120 or so constitutional amendments that were consistently around Congress.
He never signed on to, he never spoke on behalf of, any of those, ever.'' No .
. . he just took an incremental approach to attacking abortion rights instead.
Such high standards of abortion rights advocacy from the nation’s leading
abortion rights group.
The Clinton Administration
strode into office in 1993, having promised it would pass the Freedom of Choice
Act. The FOCA would essentially codify the basic rights to abortion under Roe v
Wade, removing most impediments to obtaining an abortion. As a Senator,
Gore refused to sponsor the FOCA in 1989, 1990, or 1991, after he supposedly
“evolved” into an abortion rights supporter. It was the perfect world for
pro-choice activists: a Democratic administration in the White House, and a
Democratic majority in Congress. Anti-abortion forces feared the Hyde Amendment
was doomed. On July 30, 1993, the House revisited the matter, and passed a
slightly watered-down version of the Hyde Amendment. However, “after an attempt
to kill the Amendment on procedural grounds failed, 98 Democrats crossed the
aisle, giving Hyde a 255-178 majority. When forced to go on the record about
public funding, many pro-choice members of Congress chafed, apparently agreeing
with the argument by Republican Rep. Henry Hyde…that ‘providing a constitutional
right to abortion does not mean society has to subsidize the exercise of that
constitutional right.’” (Insight on the News, 8/13/93). The
FOCA also floundered in the Democrat-majority Congress.
Congressional Democrats who
voted to uphold Hyde were assured that there would be no contrary pressure from
the White House. Nearly a month earlier, the Congressional Quarterly Weekly
Report observed that “Bill Clinton’s campaign philosophy was to make
abortion safe, rare, and legal …. However the absence of the Clinton
Administration representatives at key abortion legislation debates indicates he
is pulling back from his strong support of abortion. Clinton has done little to
promote the passage of the Freedom of Choice Act bill, only stating that if Congress
can pass it, he will sign the bill.” (7/3/93) As Fred Barnes reported in the
pro-Gore New Republic (10/11/93), the Clinton Administration “didn’t
lobby the House of Representatives last July when it took up the Hyde
Amendment….He made no effort to broker the dispute that derailed the Freedom of
Choice Act over the summer. Why not? He wasn’t asked to, explains Clinton aide
George Stephanopoulos. And he certainly didn’t offer. Nor is Clinton insistent
that abortion be kept a guaranteed benefit in his health plan. He also declined
to impose a pro-choice litmus test on nominees for federal district court
judgeships.” Barnes’ article was aptly headlined “Bush II.”
Since then, the Democrats’
vaunted support for abortion rights disappeared from view, resurfacing only in
an election year. And with the egg still freshly dripping from their faces,
NARAL, NOW, and the liberal advocacy groups are again trying to tell us that Al
Gore and the Democrats are going to be the standard bearers of abortion rights.
Gore and Lieberman, who as senators, voted to confirm Antonin Scalia to the
Supreme Court in 1986 (the vote was 98-0, not a single Democratic nay. The
“pro-choice” lobby was nowhere to be found during the Scalia nomination
hearings). Gore, who almost voted to confirm Clarence Thomas to the High Court,
voting no only because he objected to Thomas’ referring to some members of
Congress as “petty despots” (the only smart thing to pass from Thomas’ lips),
and because of Thomas’ crackpot beliefs in principles of the religio-legal
theory of Natural Law. It was a Democrat-majority Senate that confirmed Thomas,
Anita Hill debacle and all. Gore, whose contorted answers to questions over
whether or not he would apply a pro-choice litmus test to Supreme Court
nominees (he implied in the debates he would, but then says he opposes litmus
tests) are painfully embarrassing. Gore, a guy who can’t dispel suspicions
about his “evolution” into a pro-choice advocate, (if it’s true wonderful)
because in interviews with the press over the past decade, he tries to deny his
previous record, yet when challenged with his actual record he tries to fudge
his answers by raising silly distinctions. High school courses on logic and
critical thinking should use press transcripts of said interviews as exercises
in bullshit detection. Gore, a guy who continues to shamelessly lie no matter
how often he’s caught doing it. This is the pro-choice ticket?
Furthermore, how is it that
NOW, once an arguably broad-based, all inclusive, feminist organization,
transformed into a single-issue group? There are many feminists who are not
pro-choice who can find no home in NOW.
As Ellen Johnson, an Arizona Green organizer, recently quipped, “Since
the onset of the Clinton presidency NOW’s once stalwart support of many women’s
rights issues has eroded. While reproductive rights are important, so is
quality childcare, a living wage, eradication of environmental toxins, and
health care. Although Clinton/Gore promised to address these issues in ’92 and
’96, no acceptable plans for improvement have been implemented. Why is NOW so
willing to give Gore another chance? Oh yeah, I forgot, for abortion
rights…What is Roe vs. Wade worth to you NOW? If it means the wholesale sellout
of a constituency you once pledged to serve then you are on the right track. If
Gore wins because you’ve browbeaten enough women away from voting for Nader,
then you can enjoy the power that comes with being co-opted by the system.” (Counterpunch,
October 1-15, 2000).
Am I saying Bush will be any
better? Of course not. If abortion rights is the central issue for many people,
then a vote
for Nader is the pragmatic choice. More to the point, the
defense and expansion of any rights is a matter of activism, activism,
activism. Nothing else. That is how we got Roe v Wade, authored by a Nixon
appointee, during the Nixon years in the first place. That’s why five
Republican-appointed Supreme Court Justices upheld Roe in the 1992 Planned
Parenthood v Casey decision. As Z Magazine editor Michael Albert so
eloquently put it, never ever let anyone, especially liberals and so-called
progressives who ought to know better, “redefine the lesser evil discussion in
a way that presumes that elected officials are invulnerable to pressure, that
vote outcomes matter more than the consciousness and organization of
constituencies, and that movement organizing impacts what occurs in the short
term and what is possible in the long term only by miracles as opposed to the
hard work of losing, losing, losing on the road to winning.”
After twenty years of Reagan-Bush and their wannabes Clinton-Gore, it’s way past time for sunrise to rouse us from this long, dark night.
Sunil
Sharma is the editor of Dissident Voice. He can be reached at: editor@dissidentvoice.org