Congresman Moran's News Commentary

This week marks the 32nd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision making a woman’s right to choose the law of the land. Tuesday night, I attended the NARAL Pro-Choice America dinner celebrating that landmark decision and while the event was a festive occasion, the mood of those in attendance was understandably anxious. For no time in the last three decades has a women’s right to choose been under such attack and the potential for the successful nomination of anti-choice Supreme Court Justices been so great.

As you may remember, Senator Arlen Spector, at the time waiting to be granted the Chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made comments after the ‘04 elections that the President should think very carefully about an anti-choice nomination for the Supreme Court. This sensible bit of advice to the President brought down a storm of protest from conservative activists across the country who called for his rejection to the post overseeing Bush’s Supreme Court nominees.

Unfortunately, in order to assure his ascension to the chairmanship, Senator Spector, a pro-choice Republican, had to essentially pledge his allegiance that he would not prevent a nominee from being confirmed based on their abortion views. This was a significant blow to the pro-choice community and a big victory for the opposition, paving the way for conservatives of the Scalia/Thomas stripe to ascend to the highest court in the land.

During President Bush’s second term, it is all but assured that Chief Justice Rehnquist will step down due to health reasons. While his vote being replaced by another abortion opponent would not change the Court’s current makeup, a number of other justices are approaching retirement who are decidedly pro-choice. It is not inconceivable that President Bush could make three or more nominations before his tenure is up. While the President has declared he uses no abortion litmus test in choosing his judges, it is hard to take his word given past assurances on other issues such as the Assault Weapons Ban.

I am afraid that overturning Roe v. Wade is not out of the realm of possibility in the near future. To return to the days of back alley abortions and imprisoning doctors would be a big step backwards for our country. No one considers an abortion to be a good thing. It is always an unfortunate choice. But there are situations in which a woman believes it to be unwise to bring a fetus to term. And it should be her choice to make, not Congress, a body predominantly filled with older white males.

The irony of this whole situation is that the same people who want to block a woman’s access to reproductive health care are the same people who oppose comprehensive sex education instead advocating for abstinence only education. The former is proven to reduce unwanted pregnancies while the latter does not. Abstinence only education ignores the real world pressures that America’s youth face. This blocking of access to sex education not only hinders efforts to curb unwanted pregnancies, thus increasing the demand for abortion, it also endangers lives because young people are not getting the necessary information to keep them from contracting deadly STD’s. Reproductive health issues will be hotly debated in the next Congress. Let’s hope the eldest Supreme Court Justices can hold on for another four years.