Opening slate - The Eleventh Hour show #286

The Eleventh Hour funding by charitable foundations is announced and overlays show graphic.

Show Host Rpbert Lipsyte standing next to 4 TV screens, and reviews the topic of today's program, the abortion issue of the '90's featuring Faye Wattleton, the President of Planned Parenthood Federation.

INTERVIEW WITH FAYE WATTLETON CONTINUED:

Robert Lipsyte:
Why should reproductive rights so important in the early 70s, now seem to be so important again in the 90s?

Faye Wattleton:
Well, I think that reproductive rights have really become the fulcrum of attention for people who really are deeply distressed by the changes that have taken place in the last 20 years with respect to privacy, the status of women, the changing roles of women and men, and reproductive rights really is symbolic. And the energy for the opposition and the discomfort with a lot that has taken place over the last 20 years is really focused on that particular area of public debate.

Robert Lipsyte:
Specifically, what is abortion symbolic of?

Faye Wattleton:
Well, abortion is symbolic of the ultimate release, or the ultimate control that a woman can have over her reproduction and her released from her reproductive prison imprisonment. That is to say that abortion gives a woman control over her fertility at the utmost aspect. And there are a number of people who are deeply distressed by that kind of control over the circumstances of the development of life and its various stages before birth.

Robert Lipsyte:
Because that that seems religious and theoretical and almost abstract from a social and political point of view. What does it mean, to be able to control women's rights to have or not have children?

Faye Wattleton:
Well, what it means politically and socially is that it gives women the capacity to control their fertility in a way that that enables them to take charge of their lives and to establish their social equality through the equality that they now will have or that they now do have with respect to fertility management. There isn't much that a woman can achieve in life if she can't control her fertility. It's really kind of fundamental to our physiology and our anatomy, that it is a unique feature of womanhood, that we bear children. And if we cannot control that process, then all other elements of our lives are really not in control. So with respect to the attainment of social equality, the aspirations of women, the capacity for, for us to chart our own destiny, our reproductive capacity must be seen as an integral part of our entire integrity. And if that aspect is controlled by the state, then in a fundamental sense, the most personal and the most basic aspects of our lives and our movements are controlled by the state.

Robert Lipsyte:
It's a kind of a tyranny. I hear you saying a kind of Fascism.

Faye Wattleton:
Well, I do believe that it is tyranny when the state engages in policies that restricts the most personal aspects of our lives. It is as tyrannical as the state saying that you and I can't sit here together because we don't share the same eye color or the same speech pattern or some other artificially defined characteristic. It's as though the state say, saying to the people of America, that you have to engage in certain speech. And there are certain things that you can't say that you're restricted by government decree from saying certain things. I mean, we would see that as outrageous as somehow untypical and unAmerican and typical of the American way, and I don't see that reproductive control is really any different than those fundamental rights, those rights that are protected by our constitution and Bill of Rights. If our most personal bodies are not off limits to the federal government, then what else can be?

Robert Lipsyte:
What I also hear is that you're totally disregarding the debate, the debate that it's murder, the debate that a life is being snuffed out, you're saying there is no debate,

Faye Wattleton:
I am not disregarding that debate. And I think that that is a legitimate debate. And I think that there is every reason for the debate to go on. The point at which I take strong exception is that the government must not control that debate, and impose a system or a standard that requires conformity to a single point and a single answer. Certainly, we can debate these questions as moral issues within the context of our religious values within the context of our definition of family and life. And all of those are elements that make up the integrity of the human character, but the government has to stay out of it. These are very serious questions in which very reasonable and good people have wide divergence of opinion, the government must stay out of it. And on that point, I take great exception to the government being involved.

Robert Lipsyte
Yeah, and the government is even more in it now after Webster, because it's 50 governments that are in it rather than 150 governments

Faye Wattleton:
50 Governments and the Congress of the United States. And that's, that's really the great tragedy of Webster, and why the abortion issue, unfortunately, will dominate American political debate for the next decade or longer. Webster said that the Supreme Court now is going to step back a bit and not hold the right to abortion as a constitutionally protected right, but one that can be restricted by state governments. Now, the Supreme Court went on to say that, at least in the case of Missouri, those provisions are constitutional. But we're not willing to tell you how far we're willing to go to permit certain restrictions, let the states go to it and decide for themselves what laws they want to pass and then they can come back to us. And if we approve, then those state laws can be enacted. So it invites a political struggle over abortion for the foreseeable future. One that should be a personal issue, not debated by politicians in Albany or in Washington. And now the Supreme Court has opened season on the political debate.

Robert Lipsyte:
Now, as the abortion debate suffuses all political discourse, and you feel it, this is going to be for the next decade, through the 90s it's going to have impact on a lot of areas. Abortion is is going to be this this wedge. women in politics, poor people in politics, perhaps the future of the Democratic Party, the republican party as well? What What do you see happening? I mean, how do you see? How do you see the impact in other aspects beyond abortion?

Faye Wattleton:
Well, just as the abortion question is not simple, it's not very easy to define what will happen in a very simple and straightforward way. I think that you're quite correct, that it will take on many features, and many elements will be involved. What has been impossible for those who want to outlaw abortions to achieve, is a wholesale reversal of legal abortion in this country. So instead of continuing to pursue that agenda, what they will continue to do is to try to cut off funding for low income women for abortions, that is government financing for low income women for abortions. They will try to restrict abortion services for teenagers, they will try to make it impossible for women beyond the first or second trimester of pregnancy to obtain an abortion without severe burdens. And that really complicates the issue of abortion in a way that you get into major elements around the the outer fringe in which there is a lot of debate and a lot of divergence of concern. So when you're not looking at a straightforward attack on its legality, but looking at an approach in which the attacks are really peripheral, it is guaranteed to play out in many aspects in American political life.

INTERVIEW INSERTION CONTINUES:

Faye Wattleton:
I'm not placing my hopes on one party against another I'm placing my hopes on the the progressive outlook that that politicians elected officials can hopefully achieve in the next few years that lead us out of the last decade of the century, think the changes that are taking place in Europe, with the recession and the receding will to engage in warfare gives us an enormous opportunity to look at our domestic issues in a way that we have not had, at least in my lifetime. We have in recent years been been told that we must build a strong national defense and who of us can can debate that. But also there has been an enormous neglect of our domestic and social policies that has given us a widening gap among the poor, a great many social problems that have been exacerbated that need the collective attention and commitment of policy leaders. That is not to say that we have gotten become engaged in very expensive government programs. But it does mean that we need a national debate and a collective will to address the problems of drugs, of illiteracy, of homelessness, of healthcare, of hunger. These are serious issues, not the issue of whether a woman will control her fertility, but the issues of the future of our society and thereby at the world.

Robert Lipsyte:
What you just said, those are the serious issues. You don't think that abortion is a serious issue.

Faye Wattleton:
I think it is a serious issue for the person involved. I do not think it should be a serious issue of some politics.

Robert Lipsyte:
You don't think it should be an issue at all?

Faye Wattleton:
I don't think that it should be. Yeah, absolutely. I do not think that it is a political issue. I think it is a personal issue that should be left to the individual to decide. Who is a politician in Washington that knows nothing about me my life circumstances or another woman's life situation, what she needs and what her her desires for her life is, to decide for her what she will and won't do with her personal life. I'm saying that there are overarching and overwhelming social problems that need to be addressed. And Americans need to be left alone to try to carry out their personal lives as they see fit.

Robert Lipsyte:
Yea, we still need these politicians to manage some aspects of this country. How do you see this shaping the Democratic Party in the Republican Party in the 90s?

Faye Wattleton:
Well, let me just say that I'm not ready to throw out politicians. So yes, we do need politicians to shape these policies. I believe that the Republican Party is really in a very tough spot. Unfortunately, Mr. Bush has painted himself in an even tougher spot. He had an opportunity to really offer a moderating compromise around these difficult issues. Instead, he has taken a harder line, I think the Democratic Party will take great advantage of the mood in the country that is opposed to this position of this administration. And the republicans will have a very difficult time trying to carve out a more moderate position. And I hope that they will it is not. This is not this ought not to be a partisan issue. It ought to be an issue in which there is great consensus in both parties, that the American people want the government to stay out of it. And we will stay out of it.

Robert Lipsyte:
Well, certainly it was an aspect of the governor's race in New Jersey.

Faye Wattleton:
It was an aspect of the governor's race in Virginia. It was an aspect of the of the mayor's race in New York, it will be an aspect of of off year elections and and special elections, as we saw in San Diego, California. Unfortunately, it is going to permeate politics because of the Webster decision that said that this is a political issue, not one that is solely protected by the Constitution.

Robert Lipsyte:
One of the things I think I keep hearing you say is that abortion is is not an issue for politics for public debate. It's it's a personal thing. And yet its symbolism has been enormous. One of the things that seems to have done is revive the women's movement and the civil rights movement. And that's kind of a rallying cry.

Faye Wattleton:
I could have done without that revival, and I think a lot of women could have there's no question that once the status quo had been disturbed as a result of the Webster decision, that the broad public sentiment in support of legal abortion was awakened and and really disturbed and now you see a galvanization of interest in energy and doing something to reverse this trend. We had long held that the lack of acrimony among the broader silent majority should not be judged as disinterest or lack of support for keeping the government out of these issues, but rather a comfort with the status quo, as the Supreme Court had carved out legal abortion in Roe v. Wade. Now that has been disturbed. The misfortune, of course, is that while this has rallied various movements into action, in defense of the threat that now is perceived and is very real, women suffer. Poor women are denied access to abortions, teenagers are afraid to go to a health agency if they can't go to their parents. Those are the people who pay the enormous price. And I think that we could have done without that price to be paid.

Robert Lipsyte:
Now, the the scenarios of the 90s, the way in which we can diverge is is One: a constitutional amendment in which every woman has the right to total reproductive choice, or in another direction, even a greater suppression of choice in kind of following those those two possibilities, how do you think it will change the way we live in America?

Faye Wattleton:
Well, I think that the abortion debate will change the way we live, and that it will require those who seek political office to take different positions about fundamental life in America, so that you're likely to see different kinds of people seeking and gaining elective office, so that the philosophies will be different. I think that those people who have riden in on the strength of support of a coalition, a narrow coalition of Americans who were willing to vote this issue and voted only will now either have to change their position and deal with these issues differently, or will be turned out of office. So we're likely to see a very different profile.

Interview concludes. Host Lipsyte standing in front of four tv screens, announces the conclusion of "Fast Forward the Next Decade" on tomorrow's program. He announces The Eleventh Hour and introduces himself. Show ends.

Funding for The Eleventh Hour is announced. Show graphics.