Source: NARAL Pro-Choice America
Date: January 22nd 2004
Submitted by: Anon

Thank you, on behalf of the Acting President of the United States, I want to thank you all for coming out tonight.

Speaking at a NARAL event at this moment in history, I'm tempted to throw my speech up in the air and scream for us all to run for our civic lives.

How on earth did we get to this moment? And how did it happen so fast?

Balancing a rabid house and an increasingly conservative senate, we now have the most reactionary radical right-wing administration in any one's memory and a President who makes his own father look like Abbie Hoffman.

The entire Federal Government is in the control of a party whose stated goal is to overturn Roe v. Wade. And to the good pro-choice Republicans who are here tonight to support NARAL, we thank you for moderating your party. We respect the Republican ideal of a small federal government. We just don't want it so small it fits inside our bedroom.

Let's see. Radical anti-choice White House, radical anti-choice Congress and, of course, those Supreme Court judges who just keep getting older and older and older.

So here we are. A single broken hip away from losing our most fundamental right to govern our own bodies, facing decades of hard work just to get back to where we started thirty years ago.

Now comes the part where I am supposed to give you hope after scaring you, but, sadly, the word "hope" feels a little naïve in these crazy times. Too many worst-case scenarios have come true in the last couple of years. We don't have the luxury to dismiss our fears anymore.

We are all here today simply to say ENOUGH.

• To Karl Rove and to George W. Bush who have taken our fear, vulnerability, and genuine desire for patriotic unity in the wake of 9/11 as an opportunity to ram a radical right wing agenda down our throats, WE ARE HERE TO SAY ENOUGH!



• To anti-choice zealots who say they want fewer abortions-then fight the family planning and the education that makes them less necessary, WE ARE HERE TO SAY ENOUGH!



• To gag rules that block women from getting the vital medical information they need, WE ARE HERE TO SAY ENOUGH!



• To un-constitutional attempts to ban safe abortion procedures, such as "so-called partial birth" abortions when a woman's life is in danger, WE ARE HERE TO SAY ENOUGH!



• And to a concerted effort to stack the courts with ideological zealots who would trample the right to privacy, WE ARE HERE TO SAY ENOUGH!

We are here to say YES to policies that support a woman's right to choose. There is no single more powerful thing you can do than to support your pro-choice friends in Congress. Taking action makes a difference.

And most of all we are here to say YES to a future for my little daughters where they have the fundamental right to govern their own bodies, free from legislation, free from intimidation, free from fear.

Pro-choice doesn't mean pro-abortion. No-one is pro-abortion. Pro-choice means that whatever your views, you ought to be trusted to make your own deeply felt, deeply moral decisions.

That's what NARAL Pro -Choice America stands for. And that is what we must make sure this country continues to stand for.

Before I close, I want to acknowledge my sister, Debbie Ward, and Mom, Genevieve Whitford (who's gonna be 89 years old next month) who came down from Philadelphia to be here tonight, two women, I can assure you who don't need a bunch of Oil executives telling them what to do with their bodies. Ma, Debbie, on behalf of my brothers, I want to thank you for making sure we like our women strong and independent.

Which is why it is such an honor to pay tribute to Kate Michelman tonight. Anyone who has ever come in contact with Kate knows how intoxicating her passion for the fight for reproductive freedom can be, and anyone who gets to know her well knows that adversity, whether personal or political, only serves to steel her resolve. Thank you, Kate for leading the fight for freedom, for dignity, and for a woman's right to choose. Thank you for helping to make abortion as safe, as legal and as rare as it can possibly be so that ours is nation where every child is wanted and every birth is a birth of hope.

Remarks found @ http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/about/whitford_remarks.cfm

[ NARAL | Top ]