NARAL was right!

Horse trading is as common in Washington today as it once was in Cheyenne. Deals are made between Democrats and Repub licans to add this provision to that bill, or let a nomination to a powerful post go through, in exchange for some quid pro quo.

It appears that the deal is in for Congress to go along with Bush’s nomination of Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court. That’s the word from the corporate media as of this writing. Groups like NARAL Pro-Choice America are terribly worried that this will mean an all-out assault on women’s right to choose abortion—a right now recognized in most of the developed world.

There was another deal recently—the one federal prosecutors made with Eric Rudolph. He was allowed to escape the death penalty by pleading guilty to murder in the 1998 bombing of a Birmingham women’s clinic, which killed an off-duty police officer and critically wounded a nurse, and in the bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics that killed one woman and injured more than 100. He also confessed to setting off bombs at an abortion clinic and a lesbian bar that welcomed gay men, trans people, bisexuals and other allies in Atlanta in 1997.

Under the agreement, Rudolph got the chance in court to spew out his view that “deadly force” is necessary to keep women from exercising their right to terminate a pregnancy, and he avoided a trial which could have led to unearthing the political network that helped him escape capture for more than five years. Did the authorities or the media ever invoke the phrases “cop killer” or “animal” to describe this terrorist? No, that’s just for the poor and oppressed.

But the media have gone ballistic over a television ad opposing Roberts’ nomination that NARAL ran—and then withdrew after enormous pressure. Liberal or conservative, they have spent much more ink and airtime attacking NARAL than they did reporting on Rudolph’s confession to mass mayhem and murder. (A search of Google News for “Eric Rudolph” turns up only 1,230 recent hits; a search for “NARAL” turns up 3,830.)

The point of the NARAL ad was to show that Roberts has a history of opposing abortion—although he is downplaying it during the nomination process. And that he is soft on the violence against clinics that provide abortions, along with other health services for women. He does and he is.

Roberts gave legal support to “Operation Rescue” when it held a weeklong national mobilization there to shut down women’s clinics in Buffalo, Roberts’ home town, not long after a prominent doctor, Barnett Slepian, had been murdered in his home there by a sniper. Slepian had been a target of the anti-abortion right wing.

MSNBC just unearthed a letter Roberts wrote while he was a lawyer in the Ronald Reagan White House. In it, he gave his legal endorsement to a plan for Reagan to send a supportive telegram to a “memorial service” for aborted fetuses. Roberts’ October 1985 memo said the telegram was “an entirely appropriate means of calling attention to the abortion tragedy.” This memo is just the latest in a long paper trail showing Roberts’ affinity to the anti-woman right wing on this issue.

The Democratic Party, which claims to support women, has gone along with the campaign against NARAL and now appears poised to let Roberts—who is also anti-worker and a racist—join the Supreme Court without a fight.

The lesson is all too clear: Women, and all groups oppressed and exploited under this system, cannot depend on either capitalist party. Looking to the next election is not the answer. We must build an independent, militant movement that can shake up both parties. Last year’s massive pro-choice rally in Wash ington showed that the people, especially the young who are now developing a high level of social consciousness, have the will and the energy to do it.