TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/100592/1005unk.000

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 5.6 KB | 118 lines

                                                                                THE POLITICAL INTEREST, Page 44

The Truth About Bush's Hypocrisy


By Michael Kramer


    Does George Bush believe in anything so deeply that he
would rather lose the election than abandon that principle? To
hear the President before the Knights of Columbus on Aug. 5,
his opposition to abortion passes the test: "I promise you
again today, no matter the political price -- and they tell me
in this year that it's enormous -- I am going . . .to stand on
my conscience when it comes to matters of life." Since then, and
despite the Republican Party's screaming pro-life affirmation of
Bush's public stance, the keepers of the faith have winked and
nodded. Hear them today, and their every statement is a nuanced
embrace of reason, each a seemingly heartfelt echo of Bush at
his Inaugural: "I yearn for a greater tolerance and
easygoingness about each other's attitudes and way of life."
Hear the President say he would support his granddaughter's
hypothetical decision to terminate her pregnancy, and his
matter-of-fact insistence that the decision to do so would be
hers alone ("Who else's could it be?"). Hear Dan Quayle say the
same, and the First Lady call abortion a "personal choice," and
the G.O.P. national chairman describe his party as a "big tent,"
immense enough to accommodate even those who favor abortion at
will.

    A mass conversion? Hardly. The President faces a gender
gap of unprecedented proportions (in most surveys, women favor
Bill Clinton by almost 20 points), a black hole attributable
almost entirely to Bush's implacable hostility to choice and the
widespread perception that the Supreme Court is only one Justice
away from overturning Roe v. Wade, which constitutionally
protects a woman's right to abortion. Now, at the worst possible
time, the President has again vetoed Congress's repeal of the
regulation that prohibits abortion counseling at 4,000 federally
funded family-planning clinics that serve the poor -- a ban the
Administration says it will begin enforcing on Oct. 1. Combined
with the gutting of other sex-education and family-planning
programs, the President's action closes the circle: Don't tell
people how they get pregnant; and when they do, don't tell them
how to get unpregnant.

    While the various aspects of the policy mesh, they have
created an acute political dilemma; hence the fog of soothing
rhetoric, an elaborate damage-control operation designed to
portray the President as a compassionate moralist saddened by
the regrettable course so many misguided souls choose. Don't be
fooled. Through presidential vetoes, ideological appointments,
Justice Department actions, executive orders and public
advocacy, the Bush Administration has implemented antiabortion
policies that are even more restrictive than Ronald Reagan's.
Consider the record:

    -- It is now the rule that federal funds may not be used
for abortions unless the mother's life is in danger; that
employers are no longer obliged to pay for health-insurance
benefits for abortions (unless the mother's life is threatened);
that legal-aid lawyers are prohibited from providing legal
assistance for nontherapeutic abortions; and that private
organizations lose federal funds if they engage in
abortion-related activities abroad, even when those activities
are paid for by non-American sources.

    -- Bush is enforcing the policy that prohibits women in
the armed forces from obtaining abortions at overseas military
facilities -- even when they use their own money to pay for the
procedures -- despite the Defense Department's acknowledgment
that "quality medical care may not be locally available."

    -- On three separate occasions, Bush has vetoed bills that
would have allowed the District of Columbia to use local tax
dollars to pay for the abortions of poor women -- which even the
Reagan Administration had permitted until 1988.

    -- Despite his repeated denials of using a litmus test to
choose officials, all the President's top health appointees are
pro-life advocates. Among the casualties of Bush's de facto
policy is the White House physician, Burton Lee, whose
pro-choice views killed his chances of becoming Surgeon General.

    Bush's health officials have systematically stymied
abortion-related research, including that designed specifically
to foster "traditional" life-styles. The President's minions
have twice torpedoed so-called "sex surveys" considered vital
to planning the government's response to the AIDS crisis because
they included questions about contraception and sexual behavior.
In 1990 an interagency task force proposed funding school-based
clinics "in high-poverty areas with high rates of out-of-wedlock
births." A White House official acknowledged that such a program
could reduce teen pregnancy and the number of single-parent
families, but the Administration feared being seen as
"encouraging promiscuity" and worried that the plan could "cause
political problems among groups that are opposed to birth
control." At the same time, total public funding for
contraceptive devices has declined by one-third over the past
decade; after a steady decrease in the 1970s, unintended
childbearing in the U.S. is again on the rise.

    As the President softens his tone for political gain, keep
in mind the classic advice of Richard Nixon's Attorney General,
John Mitchell: "Watch what we do, not what we say." Do that, and
the two words one would never use to describe Bush's actions in
the area of reproductive freedom are kind and gentle.