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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Supreme Court turns its back on protection for women’s health and saftey

For Immediate Release

(New York, NY) - Faye Wattleton, President of the Center for the Advancement of Women, said that the Supreme Court, in Gonzalez v. Carhart, has turned its back on more than three decades of precedents that have protected the health of women. In Roe v. Wade the Supreme Court opened an era of 30 years of progress toward a safe medical procedure that is practiced by more than 1 million American women every year.

The Court’s stated intent is to draw “boundaries to prevent practices that extinguish life and are close to actions that are condemned.”

“Regrettably, the Court has disconnected the physician’s best judgment from the reality of the patient’s life,” Wattleton said.  “The decision could easily be mistaken for a screed from an anti-abortion pamphlet.  It lacks empathy for the often complex decision. In the Justices’ views, abortion requires a difficult and painful moral decision, fraught with anguish.  All Americans should be anguished that the court did not draw a constitutional line protecting women’s health and life.”

“Where will the next boundary be drawn? Where is the evidence that the Court needs to engage in protecting ethical and reputable practices of the finest healthcare system of the world?” Wattleton asks.  “It will certainly cast a chilling effect on the physician’s ability to provide his/her best medical care for women, intensifying the crisis in access to safe, legal abortion.”

“Every woman, regardless of her views on abortion, should be alarmed and angered by this abrupt shift in the long history of the Constitution’s recognition of a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy and the pre-eminence of protecting her health,” Wattleton said.  “This is a wake up call to all Americans to recognize the importance of participating in the national elections and in the political process confirming Supreme Court nominees, who are granted the high privilege of arbitrating the rules of society for the balance of their lives.”

Wattleton added that “the Court’s decision leaves as the only alternative for a woman to circumvent its egregious error is to plead her individual case before a lower court, placing her in the same circumstance that teenagers currently encounter in 34 states.  This is hardly a satisfying arrangement when time is of the essence to preserve a woman’s health and life.”

Justice Ginsberg aptly summarizes the situation in which American women find themselves today:

“Today’s decision is alarming.  It refuses to take Casey and Stenberg seriously.  It tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) . . . And, for the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman’s health.”

To schedule and interview, please contact Monica Contreras at (212) 391-7718.