Mass. NARAL President Speaks

There is no more important issue in American politics today than abortion, Massachusetts National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League President Kate Michelman said last night at a Harvard Law School forum.

“Pro-choice is not pro-abortion,” Michelman stressed to an audience of about 50 people. “Some pro-choice supporters would never get abortions themselves for both moral and ethical reasons, but at the same time, they don’t believe that anyone should have their rights taken away.”

For this reason, NARAL focuses not only on increasing abortion rights, but also on decreasing the necessity for abortions. Michelman said NARAL plans to do this by continuing to fight for mandating that insurance plans cover contraceptive methods, doing more in creating available and cheaper prenatal care and educating on safe sexual practices in schools.

Michelman said the future of abortion rights options seems bleak.

“Women today have fewer reproductive rights than their mothers did after Roe v. Wade,” she said.

Michelman expressed concern over the present government, from the anti-abortion president to large contingencies in Congress that want to make abortion illegal.

Michelman attacked many of President Bush’s policies and cited fault with his attempt to block contraceptive insurance for government employees.

“His budget does not increase funds for state family planning and completely de-funds international family planning.”

She said Bush’s funding of “abstinence-only education,” which includes no information in the schools about preventing pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, has “basically failed nationally.”

Michelman said her biggest fear is the possibility of Bush nominations to the Supreme Court. If two or three anti-abortionists are appointed to the Supreme Court, coupled with the recent Unborn Victims of Violence Act, the result could potentially overturn the Roe v. Wade decision, she said.

As Michelman opened the forum to questions, she was met with a barrage of debate. Although only about 25 percent of the audience indicated themselves as anti-abortionists when Michelman inquired at the beginning of her lecture, the vast majority of questions came from that section of the audience.

Bob Joyce, 54, a Boston lawyer, said the anti-abortion opinion was important, saying he was happy the questions reflected both viewpoints.

“Many people today are searching for answers,” he said. “The questions asked showed this. People need answers for pivotal questions, and these showed that people are just looking for enlightenment.”

Marie Sturgis, executive director of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, professed strong feelings on the issue.

“I don’t think abortion is right,” she said. “Killing a child in-utero is not right. There are some so-called rights that are simply wrong, and abortion is one of them. I wanted to hear what Ms. Michelman thought, and if there was an opportunity to expose another viewpoint I would’ve taken it; but I felt closed out most of the time.”

Many of the pro-choice attendees said they were curious as to what NARAL is currently trying to pursue. Harvard law student Becky Dinwoodie, 32, said she felt she has been left out of the current issues and was glad Michelman held the debate to catch her up.

“I used to organize pro-choice events in my community, but lately I’ve been out of the loop,” she said. “I wanted to find out the current issues.”

Offering a different point of view, Philomila Tsoukala, 25, a Harvard law student from Greece, was “shocked at the hypocrisy of America, not providing enough healthcare or payments for children being born, yet they expect the women to carry the children to term.”

“Denmark has the most liberal abortion laws, but they have the lowest abortion rate,” she said.

Because of this and similar statistics, Michelman said NARAL is working on changing the face of the government and “educating at the grassroots level of what it really means to be pro-choice and why it’s relevant to our lives.”