Mainers to march for abortion rights

BANGOR – More than a thousand Mainers are expected in Washington, D.C., this weekend to protest the Bush administration’s conservative agenda on reproductive rights.

State organizers say all seats are filled on at least nine chartered buses bringing Maine residents to the March for Women’s Lives, scheduled for this Sunday on the National Mall. Many others will carpool or fly to the capital for the event, according to organizers.

The march is being billed as a historic collaboration between seven leading women’s rights groups including Planned Parenthood Federation, National Organization for Women, and the Feminist Majority.

Hundreds of co-sponsors, include The League of Women Voters, faith-based organizations, educators, health care providers, social workers, environmentalists, the Green Independent Party and many others.

“There is no question that reproductive rights are under the most significant attack in recent memory,” said Sue McPhee, vice president of external relations with the Family Planning Association of Maine. McPhee said President Bush, his Cabinet and the conservative Congress that supports him have worked consistently to reverse hard-won reproductive freedoms – primarily abortion rights.

As an example, McPhee pointed to the president’s first-day-in-office reinstatement of a provision that withholds U.S. funding for overseas family planning programs that include abortion education in their services.

Bush recently signed into law a measure that prohibits a late-term procedure medically known as “dilation and extraction” but dubbed “partial birth abortion” by abortion foes. The legislation fails to allow an exception if the woman’s health is in jeopardy, McPhee said, and is so vaguely worded that it may limit the availability of more common second-term abortions. The measure represents the first abortion procedure ban since the pivotal 1973 Roe v. Wade case that established abortion rights under the Constitution. The states of New York, Nebraska and California have challenged the new law in federal court.

Most recently, Congress passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which imposes separate criminal considerations if a fetus is injured during an assault on a pregnant woman, regardless of the stage of pregnancy. Critics argue the measure is a step toward outlawing abortion.

McPhee said advocates are also concerned over the president’s appointment of ultra-conservative judges to powerful federal circuit court positions. At least two appointments have been made while Congress was in recess, bypassing the normal Senate approval process. It is from the ranks of federal court judges that a president is most likely to make appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Closer to home, McPhee said, “we are lucky to live in a state where political and faith-based leadership is generally supportive of reproductive rights, family planning and common-sense approaches to teen pregnancy.”

Ironically, Maine’s comprehensive approach to driving its teen pregnancy rate from one of the highest in the nation to the third lowest disqualifies it for federal funding under the current administration, McPhee pointed out. “They are pumping billions into ‘abstinence only’ programming and actually taking money away from schools that offer access to comprehensive family planning services,” she said.

A bus headed to the march is scheduled to leave Bangor at about 4:30 p.m. Saturday. It will join marchers in Portland and participate in a sendoff rally there at 8:30 p.m., featuring Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe.

The March for Women’s Lives is expected to draw counterdemonstrators from the pro-life movement, but no such event is planned for Maine. Richard Traynor, executive director of the Maine Right to Life Committee, said his organization would not be protesting locally, despite their strong opposition to the politics of the marchers.

“This is the same bankrupt message they’ve been delivering for 31 years [since Roe v. Wade],” he said. “But the public isn’t buying it.” Traynor said the political will in Washington mirrors growing public sentiment that “life in the womb is alive, it’s human and it’s sacred.”

Traynor said Maine Right to Life is cultivating political candidates “who believe in good governance and also in protecting the sanctity and dignity of life.”

“This is an election year,” McPhee said. “Our opponents are passing legislation that threatens our reproductive and privacy rights. We are the silent majority, and that silence is something we need to overcome. The message is this: It’s time to be visible, to be vocal and to be vigilant.”

More information on the March for Women’s Lives is available at www.ppnne.org or by calling (800) 854-9762.