The Right to Lie Movement: Obstruction of Truth and the South Dakota Ban

Tomorrow, the voters of South Dakota will consider, by referendum, the law passed by their legislature, and signed by their Governor, that bans abortion in their state. If South Dakotans support the law, it will create a direct challenge to the Roe v. Wade decision and send it on a course to the Supreme Court where the balance in favor of Roe now teeters by one pro-choice vote. If the South Dakota voters discard the ban, pro-life operatives will intensify efforts in other states in order to fill the judicial pipeline with similar challenges in anticipation of an opening on the high court within the next few years. Either way, the process by which the South Dakota law came to be should be of concern to all Americans, pro-choice and pro-life alike.

Before the South Dakota legislature banned abortion (even in cases of rape and incest) it created a task force whose purpose was, it's clear now, to justify that ban. Of course, the language that formed the task force didn't state that explicitly. The task force was set up to "study the practice of abortion since its legalization." It sounded clear and unbiased, but to assure the desired outcome the pro-life legislators took a crucial, initial step. They stacked this supposedly unbiased, supposedly scientific study group with leaders from the right to life establishment, including the Executive Director of Right to Life of South Dakota, a board member of the National Right to Life committee, the Director of the Respect Life office of the South Dakota Catholic Diocese as well as the husband of the campaign manager of Vote Yes for Life, the organization leading the statewide campaign to ban all abortions. (Just to put things in perspective, the website of Vote Yes for Life, the online headquarters of the campaign to ban all legal abortions in the South Dakota, proclaims, "Most Rape and Incest Victims Don't Want Abortions" No legitimate studies were cited to back up the claim, and that's because the legitimate ones find otherwise. A 2005 study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that 84% of women report that in rape or incest report they would consider abortion.) A few physicians were hand-selected to sit on the task force, though the pro-life majority seemed to have in mind a particular sort of doctor, like Dr. David Wachs, a South Dakotan family medicine doctor who refuses to prescribe birth control to patients. With their people in place making for a comfortable voting majority, the pro-life block set some ground rules.

The first task force meeting was opened by pro-life State Representative Roger Hunt. Representative Hunt sponsored the bill creating the task force and would later be the lead sponsor of the total abortion ban bill. Hunt has been fairly straightforward about his views on sex, this year he explained on the floor of the state legislature that "Intercourse is for the purpose of reproducing the human race," To open the proceedings, Hunt explained that the task force should accept as evidence only studies that met the highest standards. Minutes later, Hunt, along with other nine majority pro-life members - there were seventeen members - struck down a motion requiring the taskforce only accept as evidence studies that were peer-reviewed and published. Clearly, the task force wasn't interested in science; it was interested in results, even if they had to be obtained through science fiction, a disturbing practice that has become a hallmark of the right to life movement's approach.

Even Dr. Marty Allison, the pro-life chairperson of the task force (though a pro-lifer with no ties to the pro-life establishment), was left wondering why the right-to-life movement was unable to wage its campaign honestly, democratically, and using legitimate scientific research. Allison, a pediatrician from Sioux Falls, SD explains, "Basically, our assignment was to be a data collecting, fact finding group and we were supposed to be objective and gather the research and present it in objective fashion. I just want people to know that is not what happened. The end result was a subjective, biased report that was put out and the whole process was ruled by the majority (pro-life) members and what their beliefs were. I believe pro-life South Dakotan's would want their opinions based on fact, correct information and found through a democratic process. Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way."

Though the taskforce did occasionally allow the appearance of honest examination. It did permit testimony by a true national expert on legalized abortion, Dr. Stanley Henshaw. Henshaw is a Senior Fellow at the Guttmacher Institute, the nation’s premier research center on reproductive health issues, including abortion, and has authored over 60 articles and publications on abortion in the United States and internationally. Henshaw came away with a distinct impression of his interviewers. “These weren’t just any anti-abortion people,” he said, “they were the most extreme anti-abortion people and from what I observed, close-minded. They didn’t have apparently a strong sense of fairness.” And while his testimony never made it into the final report, the pro-life majority opinion of him did. Unpersuaded, or perhaps threatened, by the reams of data Henshaw presented detailing how legal abortion has decreased the death rate among pregnant women and lowered infant mortality and morbidity, the pro-life majority conclude in their final report that Henshaw’s testimony was "offensive [and] eugenic in nature," and therefore the task force "disregard[ed] his opinion." (Henshaw explains it was par for the pro-life course. “They were looking for anyway to disregard actual objective studies,” he said.) Eventually, the South Dakota Legislative Council removed the eugenics slur for fear of being sued for slander.

The pro-life majority of the taskforce instead embraced testimony of like-minded individuals, regardless of its truthfulness. Lynn Paltrow, Executive Director of Advocates for Pregnant Women, a pro-choice advocate who also testified reported that “The taskforce accepted testimony from psychologist Vincent Rue who claims that women who have abortions are at serious risk of experiencing what he as called "post abortion trauma," a trauma supposedly associated with having had an abortion. Dr. Rue argued that the Task Force should adopt significant and costly new laws based on his personal theories. These theories, however, have been rejected by his peers both in the field of psychology and even among leaders opposed to abortion. Former United States Surgeon General, Dr. Koop, for example though personally opposed to abortion, has testified, ‘the psychological effects of abortion are miniscule from a public health perspective.’ Moreover the assertion that there are unique and significant psychological harms as a result of abortion has been rejected by numerous peer reviewed scientific studies addressing this question and by leading medical groups including the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association.”

Towards the end of the taskforce meetings, the majority pro-lifers apparently convened in private to decide what they’d be doing, even if they’d told the minority members the exact opposite. For instance, when asked whether a final report was going to be produced, Rep. Hunt suggested it was unnecessary, not required. So it came as something of a surprise to the minority members when the evening before their final meeting they received via email a 77page document entitled “Report of the South Dakota Task Force on Abortion” along with instructions to review it and be prepared to comment on it the following day. One didn’t need to get far into the document (Section A1 was titled “the Incorrect Assumptions of the Roe v. Wade decision”) to understand its conclusion: abortion should be made illegal.

At the final hearing, the pro-choice minority members, as a last resort, offered motions primarily focused on promoting ways to prevent abortion by expanding access to contraception and comprehensive sex education. Every motion to equip the citizens of South Dakota with a greater chance to avoid unintended pregnancy was rejected by the pro-life majority. The four pro-choice task force members in attendance finally stormed out of the meeting in disgust. One who left, Dr. Maria Bell, an ob-gyn and surgeon, was the co-chair of the task force and later explained: “The task force members who walked out of the meeting had spent much of the meeting introducing findings and recommendations which would have, if adopted by the Legislature, resulted in a reduction of unplanned pregnancies in South Dakota, thereby reducing the number of abortions in the state. All of these recommendations were struck down by the anti-reproductive rights majority on the task force. They weren’t willing to do anything to reduce the need for abortion by preventing unplanned pregnancies.”

The bill that came out of the task force report is now law. It states: “The Legislature finds, based upon the conclusions of the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion, and in recognition of the technological advances and medical experience and body of knowledge about abortions produced and made available since the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade, that to fully protect the rights, interests, and health of the pregnant mother, the rights, interest, and life of her unborn child, and the mother's fundamental natural intrinsic right to a relationship with her child, abortions in South Dakota should be prohibited.” South Dakotans will have one last chance to reject the conclusions, as well as the means by which they were reached, tomorrow.

Tony Pervkins

You can always rely on the Family Research Council to come up with the most outlandish and brutal sexual fantasy when any common sense solution is offered for our country's high rate of unintended pregnancy. It's most recent has been inspired by the FDA's apparent willingness to re-reconsider the emergency contraception over-the-counter (OTC) application, this time only for women 18 and older. The Family Research Council explains that by considering making a contraceptive that's 85% effective at preventing abortion available over-the-counter to adult women, "the Administration is considering making it easier for statutory rapists to obtain Plan B, the "morning after pill," by granting over-the-counter (OTC) status for women 18 years and older." How can a contraceptive available over-the-counter only to women, that's those 18 and older, aid statutory rapists? Only the depraved minds at the Family Research Council seem to know. And even though the Family Research Council opposes it, which usually means it's something you can enthusiastically support, many reproductive rights advocates view the administration's new interest in EC OTC as a transparent attempt to allow Von Eschenbach's nomination to head the FDA proceed later this week. After all, Von Eschenbach's has already weighed in on the EC OTC application -- offering an a surefire plan to deepsix the new version too. Von Eschenbach wrote on July 31 (yesterday), that unless Barr (the EC OTC applicant) can guarantee that no woman under 18 will use the drug without medical supervision, the product will remain "Rx Only". This would hold Barr to an impossible standard--thereby creating a reason to once again delay or deny the application.

How is Locking Up Grandma Pro-Family?

Senator Clinton, arguing against the "Child Custody Protection Act" (or The Teen Endangerment Act), yesterday offered a brief break from all the "pro-life" distortions with an eloquent reality-based speech from the Senate floor. Here are her comments unedited:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on the floor of the U.S. Senate

July 25, 2006:
I met the 14-year-old who already had a baby, and I met the 12-year-old who was now pregnant with her father's baby. And my heart just broke. Who was that child supposed to talk to? Where was that child supposed to go? The sister was trying to help her younger sister. If she had a driver's license, she might have driven her to where she could have gotten medical care.

A couple years later, I was practicing law in Little Rock, and Arkansas had a parental consent law with a judicial bypass. People were called by judges whenever this occurred and were asked to come and represent the young girl who was appearing before the court. I got called one day, as I was on the list as a practicing lawyer.

So I went and met my client, a 15-year-old girl. She had been raped by her mother's boyfriend and was pregnant. Her mother could have cared less. Maybe her mother should have cared. Lord knows, I wish she had cared. But she didn't want to disrupt the relationship with the boyfriend. So the girl needed to come to court and get a judge to give her permission because there was no parent. There may have been a biological parent, but there wasn't a parent in any sense of the word other than biology.

By that time, I had my own daughter and I thought, what a tragedy. You know, life isn't always the way we wish it would be. Sometimes tragedies happen, and sometimes families are not just negligent but abusive. Sometimes young girls are taken advantage of by members of their family, people in whom they should be able to trust.

So I just have to say that when we talk about experience, we can all bring experience to the floor of the Senate. We can talk about the many instances where things worked out, parents did do the right thing; they gave their children the right values, gave them the appropriate education to know how to take care of themselves, to respect themselves. But I have lived long enough to know that is not everybody.

I wish it were. But in the meantime, we are going to sacrifice a lot of girls' lives.

We now know, because we have research to prove it, what works. We know that in South Carolina--for example, in a Wall Street Journal article recently was a story about small, impoverished towns that had a high rate of teenage pregnancy, and they decided they wanted to do something, and they got help. They had one-on-one coaching sessions for parents who would come and participate. They preached abstinence, but they also taught about contraception and they made it clear what they wanted their children to do, how they expected them to behave to try to prevent irresponsible sexual activity and pregnancy. They tried to make both the young women and the young men accept responsibility for their actions.

I know, too, in my state, we have a lot of grandmothers and aunts who are raising children. The Child Custody Protection Act would put any family member--a sister, aunt, or grandmother--in jail for helping a teenager deal with one of the most difficult decisions that any person has to make. I don't believe that these young women should make those decisions alone. Certainly, we are complicating the lives of everyone instead of doing our duty as parents, as family members, and as leaders, which is to inculcate and pass on values but to recognize that reality is messy. I have championed kinship care, and I know how many grandparents are raising children, and I know from my own personal experience how many older relatives who are faced with very difficult situations would be criminalized if they tried to reach out and help a young girl who asked them for that kind of assistance.

The Child Custody Protection Act, while seeking to criminalize what a teenager does once she is pregnant, fails to address the issue of teen pregnancy in this country, the root of the problem. One of the most important initiatives I worked on as First Lady and am proud to continue to champion in the Senate is the prevention of teen pregnancy. In 1996, we worked with the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy to set a goal to reduce teen pregnancy by one-third within a decade, and I am proud to say that we met that goal.

But we did not do it overnight. We invested over a period of time. We invested in different programs and initiatives, recognizing that this issue could not be solved with a one size fits all approach. And according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, between 1991 and 2004, the teen birth rate fell 33% to a record low for those aged 15 to 19.

And while we are all pleased that the teen pregnancy rate has dropped since 1991-- as I am that in my home state of New York, it's come down a full 10%--we also recognize that this is just a drop in bucket if we are truly going to get to the root of the problem and eliminate pregnancy among girls and boys who are far too often too young and unprepared, emotionally and financially, to be mothers and fathers.

Sadly, even with this decrease, the United States continues to have the highest rate of teen pregnancy and births in the Western industrialized world. Today, 34% of young women become pregnant at least once before they reach the age of 20, and that results in about 820,000 teen pregnancies a year. Eight in ten of these pregnancies are unintended.

Last week, CNN highlighted in a story what research has consistently shown: teenagers who receive comprehensive sex education that includes discussion of contraception are more likely than those who receive abstinence-only messages to delay sexual activity and to use contraceptives when they do become sexually active.

Teenagers need to be educated that abstinence is the best defense against an unwanted pregnancy, and they also need to be educated and encouraged to exercise cautious decisions about sex.

We should not have a cookie cutter approach to preventing teen pregnancy. In instances where young people are sexually active and are likely to remain so, we need to ensure that they are encouraged to use contraception consistently and carefully.

Sadly, instead of putting resources into this important fight to prevent teen pregnancy, we are adding more penalties for those who try to help teens during their time of crisis.

The Child Custody Protection Act would put any family member--a sister, aunt, grandmother--in jail for helping a teen cross state lines to obtain an abortion.

I don't believe that any young woman should have to make this decision alone. Research actually shows that in most cases, young women already involve one or both parents when faced with an unintended pregnancy, without being required to do so by law. But, tragically, not every family is perfect.

There are some instances in which a young woman simply cannot involve her parents, including rape, violence or incest; and for some in this body to pretend that those instances should not be considered in this debate is unconscionable. The Child Custody Protection Act glosses over these complicated situations, making criminals out of grandparents, clergy and other adults who try to act in good faith.

Instead of criminalizing other caring adults in a teenager's life, we should do more to educate and involve parents about the critical role they can play in encouraging their children to abstain from sexual activity. Teenagers who have strong emotional attachments to their parents are much less likely to become sexually active at an early age.

I am disappointed that this bill does not provide any exemptions for adult relatives or clergy who seek to provide guidance and support to young women seeking abortions. ….The reality is, not every child is fortunate enough to be raised by their biological parents. Nationwide, more than six million children--1 in 12 children--are living in households headed by grandparents. In New York City alone, there are over 245,000 adolescents already living in grandparent households.

It's important to note that for many families, but these families in particular, the legal guardian who has physical custody and who provides a young woman with support and guidance are not one in the same.

This bill fails to acknowledge the importance of close family members such as grandmothers and aunts, who often raise their relatives or play a significant role in their lives. In doing so, this bill creates a strong incentive for young women to seek risky alternatives she wouldn't have considered if permitted to seek counsel from her family and community. Major medical and public-health organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Public Health Association oppose governmental parental-involvement laws because of the risk to women's health.

While we all hope that young women will involve their parents in these decisions, mandating parental consent has the serious potential to do more harm than good. In fact, during congressional testimony, Dr. Warren Seigel, an expert in adolescent medicine, stated that legislation mandating parental involvement "represents bad medicine and places politics before the health of our youth."

The Child Custody Protection Act is a reflection of the misdirected priorities out there when it comes to truly doing something about unintended pregnancy. Rather than criminalizing family members and clergy who are trying to provide guidance to these young women in crisis, we should be working to re duce the rate of teen pregnancy in this country. There are far better ways to prevent pregnancy than putting people in jail.

That is why my good friend Harry Reid and I have long championed the Prevention First Act here in the Senate which, among other important measures, ensures that government-funded sex education programs provide medically accurate information about contraception. And that is also why I rise today to encourage all of my colleagues to support the Lautenberg-Menendez amendment because we need policies that support and educate our young women about the importance of prevention now more than ever.

blog flog

Please check out my debate with rabidly (though typical for a professional pro-lifer) anti-contraception, anti-child-care, anti-working mother, pro-life activist Jennifer Roback Morse. In her review of my book she challenged me to a debate. I happily took her up on the offer. (For transcript of the debate, go to the April 23 archive)

Another sensible common ground plea gets ignored by pro-life groups

Pro-Choice Senator Hillary Clinton and Pro-Life Senator Harry Reid have written a simple "common ground" prescription for those hoping for real solutions to our nation's high abortion rate. Most interesting in their call to action is that they place blame for the high rates of abortion squarely at the feet of our nation's pro-life groups and their campaigns against the proven abortion reduction approaches. The Senators write, "Ironically, those advocating the loudest for an outright ban on abortion are too often the same people who oppose prevention initiatives and instead support making contraception less accessible, particularly for low-income women who are more likely to have unplanned pregnancies. For example, a recent analysis by the non-partisan Guttmacher Institute revealed that South Dakota is one of the most difficult states for low-income women to obtain contraceptives. Unfortunately, the same hypocrisy applies when it comes to funding programs that support women who choose to carry their pregnancies to term. President Bush and the Republican majority in Congress have promoted budget cuts for a wide range of programs that would provide critical supports for low-income pregnant women and their children."

Finally, people with bigger bullhorns (including honest pro-life Americans looking for real solutions to reduce abortion, like Reid) are beginning to identify the real culprits. The organized pro-life movement has always used "abortion" as a fig leaf to cover an agenda that's far broader, and more sinister, than most Americans understand. It's also an agenda that's leading to more abortions. Plain and simple: Reducing abortion is not a goal of the right to life operatives, otherwise they'd have backed Clinton and Reid "Putting Prevention First Act" months ago when it was proposed. What the right to life movement really works toward is a culture of strife (ie: their strategy is to stand outside of clinics berating women for the hard choices they face when in fact they are the very ones who fought to keep contraception out of her hands). But the American public is catching on, including true pro-life Americans...

Show Me State Shows Pro-lifers' True Agenda

Missouri Right to Life suceeded today at eliminating access to birth control for the state's poorest residents. The Associated Press reports that the Missouri state legislature "voted 96-59 to delete the funding for contraception" at local health clinics "after Rep. Susan Phillips told lawmakers that anti-abortion groups such as Missouri Right to Life were opposed to the spending."

Wisconsin sues FDA for role in causing unintended pregnancies --leading to high costs for the state

Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager joined the lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights against the FDA. Lautenschlager charges that the FDA's ideologically-based decision to keep emergency contraception from becoming available over the counter has resulted in many otherwise preventable unintended pregnancies and has driven up costs to the state to care for births to teen mothers. Lautenschlager identifies pro-life forces as the real culprits explaining, "What's happening here is the politics of the federal government, in keeping a faction of the radical right happy, is essentially impacting on the health of many young Wisconsin female residents," she said. "And secondly, it's costing us money as taxpayers."