Pro-choice advocates are reacting by launching a major lobbying campaign on behalf of woman's right to choose. Bush reinstated the global gag rule, which would cut family planning funds to international organizations that use their own funds to provide or give counseling on abortion. The Bush budget proposal also eliminated the requirement that insurance companies provide federal employees with a full range of contraceptives. Efforts to restrict contraception availability could undermine the conservatives' strategy, women's advocates said, because if Americans might not notice state efforts to restrict abortion, they will certainly react to their attacks on contraception. And I know many people now who are switching parties over social issues like this.
Family planning is a compassionate issue.
Pro-choice advocates say that a host of state regulations limiting different aspects of women's reproductive health choices could end up before a Supreme Court hostile to abortion rights. The most recent high court ruling was decided by a 5-4 majority, with Sandra Day O'Connor casting the swing vote. Rumors abound that she, or another member of the five pro-choice justices, desires to retire. Thus, women's rights advocates see that reversal as a very real possibility if Bush has the opportunity to name even one Supreme Court justice. Opponents of abortion rights have adopted a strategy of maintaining a low public profile and advocating restrictions on abortion, rather than openly questioning its legality, according to Adrienne Verrilli, senior policy and communication analyst at the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association.