It seems that family planning and contraceptive services aren't what the Bush Administration had in mind when it talked about new state initiatives. The President's bias in favor of states rights over national policy also seems to disappear quite quickly when reproductive freedom is on the line. Ten years ago, abortion opponents besieged the city of Wichita, Kansas with 45 days of protests, culminating in the blockage of clinic entrances, harassment of clinic doctors, and assaults on police officers. The results included 2,700 arrests of protestors and increasing acts of violence against Wichita clinics in the subsequent two years. In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a clinic that has been subject to repeated protests and a firebombing in the past 10 years burnt to the ground this week.
Arson remains among the list of suspected causes.
Choice activists are taking this opportunity to ask legislators to send a clear message that clinic violence will not be tolerated. We urge the Department of Justice to provide security in Wichita, as well as around the country, and to use the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act to prosecute violence and blockades. It does not, however, cover health care for low-income women over the age of 18 who are pregnant. Now the Bush Administration is taking the bizarre step of trying to make unborn children eligible for CHIP coverage, bypassing the pregnant woman completely. The public overwhelmingly supports comprehensive sexuality education for America s youth.