[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 57 (Thursday, April 29, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S4682]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MARCH FOR WOMEN'S LIVES
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last Sunday, April 25, the March for
Women's Lives took place here in Washington. Its organizers estimated
that more than a million men, women, and children from more than 57
countries gathered under the banner of reproductive rights, health, and
justice for all women. Participants called on Congress and the
administration not only to protect the right to choose but also to
protect and promote family planning, maternal and child health care,
and the empowerment of women in the United States and abroad.
An op-ed by Werner Fornos, president of the Population Institute,
appeared that same day in the Chicago Sun-Times. The piece was entitled
``March is About More than Abortion,'' and it explained that the
marchers' concerns went beyond the issue of abortion to include
concerns about HIV/AIDS prevention, family planning, the President's
imposition of a global gag rule on family planning providers, and the
administration's refusal to release funds to the United Nations
Population Fund to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies that can
lead to abortion.
I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Fornos' article be printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Chicago Sun-Times, Apr. 25, 2004]
March Is About More Than Abortion
(By Werner Fornos)
Passing a barbershop window in Juneau, Alaska, the other
day, I spotted a placard inviting locals to join a rally in
Washington, D.C., today that could have significant
implications for the November presidential and congressional
elections.
If people from as far away as our country's northwestern-
most state converge upon the nation's capital in sufficient
numbers--say, a quarter of a million and upwards--it might be
time for President Bush and his political guru, Karl Rove, to
unbutton their collars and reach for the hyperventilation
bags. The performance of the Bush administration on women's
rights may be judged more by the turnout for this event than
by any poll or survey.
The purpose of the March for Women's Lives is to deliver to
our national leaders a strong, unequivocal message of support
for reproductive health and rights and justice for all women.
There are concerns well beyond those of hard-core feminists
that Bush administration policies are unduly influenced by
right-wing religious zealots and the Vatican, who oppose
modern contraceptives as well as abortion.
Much of this rising tide of reaction emanates from pro-
choice advocates infuriated by the refusal of the White House
and a Republican majority in Congress to acknowledge federal
law pronouncing abortion as a matter between a woman, her
conscience and her physician. But the march is about more
than the termination of pregnancies.
For example, a fact sheet about condoms was removed from
the National Institutes of Health Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention Web site and replaced with a document
emphasizing condom failure and the effectiveness of
abstinence.
No one is suggesting that condom failure should be ignored,
or that there is anything wrong with promoting abstinence.
The fact remains, however, that the condom, in addition to
being a method of preventing unintended pregnancy, is the
most effective defense against HIV/AIDS for sexually active
individuals.
In a world where 10 more people are infected with HIV every
minute, where half of the 40 million people already infected
are women, where HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among
African-American women ages 25 to 34 and the seventh leading
cause of death for white American women that age, it is
patently inexcusable to omit the condom option from what
should be the nation's most trusted source of medical
information.
To explain the removal of the condom fact sheet, the White
House Office of Science and Technology Policy offered the
flimsy excuse that the CDC ``routinely takes information
off its Web site and replaces it with more up-to-date
information.'' Updating the Web site is understandable,
expunging the role of the condom in preventing HIV is
simply indefensible.
If the Bush administration routinely ignores the
reproductive rights and health of women in the United States,
it is hardly surprising that respected international family
planning nongovernmental organizations give the White House
and U.S. congressional leadership low marks on their concern
for poor women around the world.
Within an hour or two after taking the oath of office,
President Bush signed the global gag rule, a policy to deny
U.S. funds to overseas family planning organizations that
provide, perform or counsel women on abortion. In the United
States, this would be a flagrant violation of the First
Amendment right to freedom of speech. But the Bush
administration, while robustly promoting democratization
worldwide, does not hesitate to penalize the world's poorest
women by withholding this right from family planning
providers overseas.
Then, too, the White House remains adamant in its refusal
to release a $34 million appropriation by Congress to the
United Nations Population Fund, the largest multilateral
provider of family planning and reproductive health services
to women in more than 140 developing countries.
Ironically, the combined impact of the Bush
administration's global gag rule and its refusal to release
the congressional appropriation for the U.N. agency has led
to thousands of abortions resulting from pregnancies to poor
women worldwide who have been denied access to family
planning information, education and supplies.
There is ample evidence that the availability of condoms
and other medically approved family planning methods already
has prevented substantially more abortions than the Bush
administration's policies have, can, or could. The women who
will march in Washington today understand the calculus of
reproductive health and family planning denial, even if many
of our national leaders do not.
Werner Fornos is president of the Population Institute and
the 2003 United Nations Population laureate.
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