Spending Millions To Bring Back Coathangers "right To Life": Power To The Bishops

   "We think the Bishops are using the abortion issue to build a political party"- Meta Mulcahy, Vice President, Catholics for a Free Choice.

    The question of abortion, thought to be settled with the 1973 Supreme Court decision, is being made a campaign issue this year by weII funded Right to Life organizations throughout the country.

   Ellen McCormack, a mother of four from Merrick, New York, has received $100,000 from the Federal Elections Commission. Her one campaign issue is abortion.

     The United States Catholic Conference, the action arm of the Roman Catholic Bishops, has a paid lobbyist in Washington and reported spending $400,000 last year in anti-abortion lobbying efforts.

    Last year, 59 anti-abortion amendments were introduced in the 94th Congress.

   Anti-abortionists are aware that politicians want to avoid taking a stand on abortion. Most members of Congress favor the Supreme Court decision, but might lean the other way publicly to avoid the "slaughter of the innocents" label f rom the Right-to-Lifers. According to Washington Right to Life lobbyist John Mackey, "One-issue voters can destroy a politician, because they just look at that one issue." Former presidential candidate Birch Bayh was one such victim in the Iowa Presidential primary.

   Jimmy Carter favors strict abortion laws and opposes the Supreme Court Decision. He hopes to reduce the need for abortion through better sex education and adoption procedures. President Ford wants to turn the question of abortion over to the individual states, which would almost certainly erode the 1973 decision.

    In Michigan, there have been repeated attempts to restrict abortions, especially for low-income women. Recently enacted Department of Health regulations, if enforced immediately, could close low-budget clinics.

     "These regulations deal with the physical appearance of the clinic, not the quality of patient care, " says Renee Chelian, Director of Detroit 's Planned Family Clinic. These standards do not apply to doctors' offices, and most of the abortions performed here are done in the first trimester- when, according to the Supreme Court, the decision is between the woman and her doctor. Chelian feels the new rules could raise the cost of abortions by as much as 300 per cent. "They wilt put the back alley abortionist back in business."

     In November 1975, the Michigan Legislature passed a bill to prevent Medicaid from covering abortions. Attorney General Kelley ruled it out on a technicality.

    The National Catholic Reporter suggests that the Bishops have created a Catholic party and "have unleashed a fearsome thing. " All this leads to the growing suspicion that perhaps the abortion issue is not so much a question of sanctity of life, but a vehicle for political power.

    TWO WAYS TO GET AN ABORTION

    It is 1969. Sandy s 19 years old, three months pregnant, and very scared. Her mother has arranged for her to have an illegal abortion in Windsor. She walks up the stairs by herself; her mother is not allowed to come with her. The room is dimly lit and dirty. The abortion is performed with no anesthetic, and the abortionist "feels her up" during the procedure. It costs her $500.

     Sandy 's family doctor, who examines her after the abortion, says she may be sterile as a result of the abortion.

    It is 1976. Ellen calls to arrange for a pregnancy test when she misses her first period. When the test is positive, she arranges for an abortion at the Washtenaw County League for Planned Parenthood. She receives personal and birth control counseling on the day before the abortion. She is also given a complete medical and pelvic exam. I accompany her to the clinic on the day of the abortion and am amazed by what I see. Women receiving abortions are grouped together, not isolated. Each woman is assigned a personal counsellor to see them through the experience. The abortion is performed by a doctor.

    "I couldn't believe it, my counsellor held my hand during the abortion," Ellen tells me when it's over.

   Before the women left that day, they were each committed to the birth control method of their choice. "We would like to see no abortions at the clinic, because adequate contraception has made them unnecessary," says Mary Krell, educational coördinator at Planned Parenthood. Ellen will return to the clinic in two weeks for a follow-up exam. The entire procedure costs $155.

     Although six years and a Supreme Court Decision separate these two women, the fact remains that they wanted an abortion and found a way to get it.

   "The international record shows that legal prohibition of abortion does not prevent its practice, but only determines whether it is safely performed in hygenic conditions under competent medical supervision, or inexpertly carried out under clandestine circumstances," according to a study conducted by the World watch Institute, sponsored by the United Nations Fund for Population Activities.

    Recent polls conducted by the media show that most Americans favor the 1973 Supreme Court decision. The most notable poll was taken in January by Knight-Ridder Newspapers in 21 American cities. The poll found that 81 per cent of the people surveyed favored the 1973 decision, and 76 per cent of Catholics surveyed favored the decision. The National Center for Disease Control in Atlanta found that in 1973, the death rate for iIlegal abortions dropped by 50 per cent.

     Despite these facts, there is a well-orchestrated movement to make abortion iIlegal again and force it on to the black market. The movement is being spearheaded by the continued Although most Catholics favor birth control and the 1973 Supreme Court decision, the Church ' spends $5 million a year on anti-abortion efforts at the parish and diocese level alone. Through the Right to Life Committee, "They are using their non-profit, tax-exempt status to build political power."

  National Right to Life Committee, Inc.

    MEET YOUR LOCAL ANTI-ABORTIONIST

    In this election year, Right to Life is pushing for either a constitutional amendment banning abortion or an amendment that would turn the question over to each state.

    Despite the fact that the National Right to Life Committee recently replaced its white, male, Catholic president with a black, female, Protestant, Dr. Mildred Jefferson, the Catholic Church remains its main moral and financial force. 85 percent of the Committee's members are Catholic, according to statistics compiled by the National Abortion Rights Action League. The Catholic Church spends an estimated $5 million annually in various anti-abortion programs at the parish and the diocesan level (Village Voice, Feb. 16, 1976).

   The Right-to-Lifers use a variety of tactics to make their point: everything from running Ellen McCormack for President to rallying 40,000 people n Washington D.C. this January, to buying TV time and billboard space with slogans like "Abortion, a woman's right to kill."

    Betty Lemmer, a spokesperson for Washtenaw County Lifespan, an affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee, told the Sun, "All life has absolute value; if one life ís threatened all life s threatened." But don't restrictions on abortions limit a woman's choices? Lemmer, a Catholic mother of five, replied, "The woman made her choice when she slept with her boyfriend. If she becomes pregnant, she should wait her time and then give life. What's so bad about giving life?"

    Battered children, says Lemmer, "are not so much the unwanted child as the planned child from middle class parents who planned 'Junior' after they bought their house and new carpet. When Junior pees on the rug and messes up their furniture, he interferes with their life."

    Lemmer opposes birth control education through agencies like Planned Parenthood "because to them, birth control means abortion. They are showing kids how to be sexually active and not get pregnant. They stress abortion as a backup means of birth control."

    Incidentally:, Lemmer explains the large number of housewives and small number of blacks in Lifespan by saying that blacks "are too busy working."

              CATHOLIC POWER:       NON-PROFIT, TAX-EXEMPT

    Karen Mulhauser, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, told the Sun, "The abortion question is not likely to influence the Presidential race like it will the Congressional races. The 1974 Congressional elections showed that many anti-abortion leaders were not returned to Congress. It also showed that a candidate's position on abortion was not as critical as had been expected."

   But Mulhauser fears the power of the Catholic Church in the anti-abortion movement. "85 percent of the Right to Lifers are Catholic, and they get a lot of free publicity in the churches. They are using their non-profit, tax-exempt status to build political power."

    This, despite the fact that most Catholics favor the use of birth control and personal choice on the question of abortion. A survey early this year by the National Opinion Research Center in Chicago of a representative sample of American Catholics found that Pope Paul VI's 1968 ruling against contraception was an "organizational and religious disaster. Far from re-asserting the teaching authority of the church and the credibility of the Pope, it has lead to a deterioration among Catholics of respect for both and provided the occasion for massive apostasy."

    Marsha Roberts of Detroit's Feminist Women's Health Center, in a recent interview with the Sun, commented, "If the Catholic Church put their money into birth control information and stressed the development of a personal moral code, so that you are not pressured into sleeping with people, they would not have to worry about abortion as much."____________________

   Maryanne George, who received a Catholic grade-school education in Southfield, is a freelance writer based in Ann Arbor.