New legislation introduced by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) would secure women’s right to choose. Lord knows we need all the help we can get.
The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) states that “a woman's decision to commence, prevent, continue, or terminate a pregnancy is one of the most intimate decisions an individual ever faces...As such, reproductive health decisions are best made by the woman, in consultation with her medical provider or loved ones, without governmental interference.�
Sen. Boxer said, “The Freedom of Choice Act says that we will not turn back the clock on the health and rights of women. And it says that we will take steps—as a Congress and as a country—to safeguard the dignity, privacy, and health of women now and for generations to come.�
Nice. NARAL Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan noted that the timing of FOCA couldn't be better. “After years of quietly chipping away at Roe v. Wade, the South Dakota ban on abortion exposed the anti-choice movement's true agenda: to overturn Roe...Today, a woman's right to choose hangs by a very thin thread.�
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The introduction of the Freedom of Choice Act is encouraging, to be sure. But ini this GOP-controlled anti-woman Congress, FOCA will likely be nothing more than a symbolic gesture.
Even if FOCA does not pass, Democrats can use it to put supposedly moderate Republicans in the hot-seat. In a recent column on TomPaine.com (http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/03/22/running_from_roe.php), Paul Waldman wrote that Democrats need to ask Republicans point-blank if they agree in a fundamental right to choose (essentially, if they agree with the central holding of Roe). FOCA might be a great vehicle with which to accomplish this. Because if the vast majority of Americans who believe in at least SOME right to choose see how out-of-step their elected representatives are, the ambivalence might give way to action. Or at least a Democrat-controlled house of Congress.
I agree with almost every part of the act, but there's one detail that bothers me.
FOCA still allows states to outlaw abortion after fetal-viability, except when the woman's health or life is at stake. That is too ambiguous for me.
The progress of medical technology may change the "cut-off date" of when a fetus is viable or not. And "health" of the woman means what exactly? If she's carrying a fetus with severe birth defects and doesn't wish to suffer the mental trauma of delivering and caring for a child who is unlikely to survive or who is likely to drain her (and perhaps her family) financially and mentally for 20+ years, does that count as "for the woman's health?"
Even post-viability abortions should be an intimate decision between the woman, her doctors, and her loved-ones, and not the government. I dream of a politician who will stand up and say "Unfettered access to abortion from the day of conception to the day of birth!" Anything less is too slippery of a slope, not to mention unnecessary. Despite wingnuts' insistence to the contrary, there just aren't a lot of women walking into clinics in the ninth month because they've just changed their mind.
Unfortunately I think Julie is right for now. The Republican-controlled Congress won't pass this right now anyway, with or without the detail that bothers me.
Is this being reintroduced? The date in the actual text of the FOCA is January 2004.
yes, it's being reintroduced. see:
http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0410-12.htm