Gore’s Backpedaling Denies U.S. Policy on Abortion : Cairo conference: We already use federal funding to coerce states; why not the world?

What promised to be a sharp and much needed debate over methods of population control is liable to end in a fog of public-relations spin control. Critics of the U.N. population conference’s draft proposal allege that it promotes abortion as a method of family planning and favors individual sexual health and liberty over the health of the family. For eight months, the draft had the unwavering support of the Clinton Administration; two weeks ago, shortly before the conference began in Cairo, however, the backpedaling began. After the Catholic hierarchy in this country threatened that Catholics would leave the Democratic Party, and after it became clear that several Islamic countries would ally themselves with the Vatican, Vice President Al Gore and Timothy Wirth of the State Department insisted that the United States was pursuing policies more or less the same as those of the Catholic Church. Could this possibly be true?

On “Meet the Press” last Sunday, the vice president said that the United States “abhors” the very idea that humanitarian aid should be tied to more liberal abortion law and policies. Yet as recently as May, the Administration warned the state of Louisiana that its ban on financing abortions for victims of rape and incest would force a cutoff of $3 billion in Medicaid.

The principle seems clear enough. The U.S. government does not hesitate to tie abortion to medical and social welfare with respect to its own states. Why should it shrink from the idea of an international body doing the same?

In Washington, memory is short and selective. On Jan. 22, 1993, President Clinton rescinded Reagan-era restrictions regarding foreign aid for family planning that includes abortion services, praising Gore’s leadership in linking this new policy to the issue of the global environment. The vice president was quite happy to receive the accolades of feminists, population-control advocates and environmentalists for his progressive and enlightened position. Granted, this was a change of U.S. policy, not a direct bid to change the policies of other nations. But the point still stands. With one stroke of the pen, Clinton put America on the side of those who support abortion as a method of family planning. In other words, the Administration has already taken steps to effectuate the very position that it denies taking at Cairo.

In fact, our laws are much more explicit on virtually all of the matters being debated in Cairo. In Planned Parenthood vs. Casey (1992), the Supreme Court did not mince words when it asserted that the abortion right must be upheld because freedom of choice is necessary to “the ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the nation.” In effect, the court ruled that social, political and economic justice requires abortion as a method of family planning. Why, then, should the United States apologize for indirectly suggesting that the same right prevail in other countries?

As to the Cairo conference’s recommendation that policies and laws “support the plurality of family forms,” the Supreme Court has taken a much stronger position. When the court in Casey invalidated state laws requiring spousal notification, it also took the occasion to say that the common law, reflecting traditional notions of spousal responsibility, is “no longer consistent with our understanding of the family, the individual, or the Constitution.” In Eisenstadt vs. Baird (1972), the court held that in matters of procreation, the law must not favor the norm of the marital couple as “an independent entity with a mind and heart of its own,” but rather “the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” In Carey vs. Population Services (1977), the court invalidated New York statutes that restricted distribution of contraceptives to minors. Once again, why should the U.S. government apologize for promoting overseas the same values guaranteed by its own constitutional order?

It is surely disingenuous for the Administration to say that critics misconstrue U.S. policy. The Administration should at least stand by its own convictions so that there can be a honest debate. This country’s laws and policies favoring abortion came to pass without an honest debate and, for the most part, without legislative deliberation. Without honest debate, the same will happen internationally. The U.S. government has a duty to put its cards on the table. After all, American taxpayers are already supporting Cairo-type policies, both at home and abroad.