Letter from Gloria Steinem

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My friend,

As I sat in front of my television and watched George W. Bush’s convention last week — perhaps the most expensive display of false advertising in history — the sense of urgency we face this November struck me with full force.

“We must make a place for the unborn,” Bush said earnestly.

But if they’re born female, their place is far less secure. The Republican Party, under Bush’s guidance, has never been clearer about its intentions to strip away women’s basic rights.

The Republican Party ratified its platform last week in New York, calling for a constitutional ban on abortion, and going even further than in the past by pledging to support only anti-choice judges(1) — and that includes nominations to the Supreme Court. This is a slap in the face to the 73 percent of Republicans who believe, as a new poll reveals, that the right to choose should be a woman’s decision, not the government’s. It’s one more proof that Bush’s views on choice aren’t in line with the majority of the country; in fact, they’re not even in line with majority of his own party.

Bush can’t confuse us with such slogans as "`W’ Stands for Women.” “W” stands for what The New York Times reported as “Bush’s War Against Women.”(2) A few examples:

• Bush signed a law banning abortion procedures without any exception for the woman's health. That’s in addition to blocking abortion rights for young women, poor women, women who work for the U.S. government — and even women in the military.
  

Bush pledges in his second term to pass a Human Life Amendment that would confer personhood on the fertilized egg, thus nationalizing women’s bodies during all of our childbearing years.

• Bush opposes sex education and lavishes tax dollars on the “abstinence-only” programs of religious extremists — even in his global AIDS package.(3) This is a cruel joke for women, who are now more likely to die of AIDS than men. When SIECUS and Advocates for Youth campaigned against federal funding for abstinence-only programs, they were subjected to three federal audits each.(4)

In Bush’s budget for 2005, he pledged $273 million more to abstinence-only programs — in addition to opposing emergency contraception (against the advice of his own panel of experts) and enforcing the Patriot Act, which requires that the U.S. government have access to all our health records, and it’s against the law for health professionals to even inform us of a government request.

• Bush eliminated funding for UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund — funds that could have prevented 800,000 induced abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths, and 77,000 infant and child deaths annually — even though a Republican-led Congress had approved them.

Bush imposed and will extend the global gag rule — already responsible for the injury and death of millions of women from illegal abortions — by executive order, no democracy necessary.

• Bush has nominated more judges than any of the past six presidents, eliminated the American Bar Association as an arbiter of competence, and supported extremists like judicial nominee Leon Holmes who wrote, "the wife is to subordinate herself to her husband."
  

In a second term, Bush will likely appoint at least one U.S. Supreme Court justice.

You may have noticed a theme here: Bush uses the Republican label and the few remaining Republican centrists in prime time at the convention but he and his administration are far from the party of Eisenhower or Goldwater (he was firmly pro-choice).

John Kerry and John Edwards are the exact opposite on all of the above positions. They will restore respect for the United States, including its policies toward the female half of the world.
Because politicians like Bush obfuscate their actual positions, political campaigns have lost credibility with many Americans.

That’s why Planned Parenthood, an organization that is trusted and known — especially by women who hold the key to this election — has endorsed a Presidential candidate for the first time in its history.

With less than 60 days left before the election, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund is on the ground and on the air in battleground states — and this is just the beginning.

Because the Action Fund does not accept labor or corporate contributions, we're one of only several organizations that are qualified to be on the air right up until November 2.

This opportunity is rare — and we have a responsibility to get the facts out.

That’s why I hope you will become a member of the Action Fund today. There is so much at stake right now, we simply cannot allow ourselves to fail — together we must rise to the challenge and educate the public about the candidates' positions, organize our grassroots supporters, and mobilize pro-choice voters each and every day until Election Day!

Sincerely,

Gloria Steinem

P.S. A low-point of the convention was using Laura Bush to present her husband as a champion of Afghan and Iraqi women. In fact, he supported the Taliban until September 10, 2001, gender apartheid and all. In other words, he uses faraway women to whitewash policies that actually place them in more jeopardy than before, plus policies that damage women here.

Please forward this e-mail to your friends, family, and colleagues and ask them to stand up for reproductive freedom — and the female half of the world — this November!

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(1)2004 Republican Party Platform, Page 86, “Promoting a Culture of Life”
(2)"The War Against Women," New York Times, January 12, 2003
(3) $5 billion of what is supposed to be AIDS funding goes for abstinence. By way of comparison, Bush’s entire 2002 foreign aid budget was $10 billion.
(4) “Sex, Lies and Politics,” The Nation, August 30, 2004 .

Paid for by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund,
www.plannedparenthoodvotes.org.
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.