xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx CHOICE-NET REPORT For Week ending July 16, 1994 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx CHOICE-NET REPORT is a weekly update on reproductive rights issues distributed through email, Women's Wire, gopher.WELL.com, Usenet groups alt.activism, talk.abortion, soc.women, and other Internet channels. Please reprint, distribute and TAKE ACTION. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx WHITE HOUSE CONTINUES TO SEARCH FOR A MIDDLE GROUND ON HEALTH CARE REFORM On Saturday, white house chief of staff Leon Panetta hinted that the Clinton administration will continue to fight for abortion coverage in the national health care reform plan. However Panetta stopped short of saying that the administration considers reproductive health care to be a non-negotiable part of universal coverage. Early in the week Last week, the Conference of Catholic Bishops launched a media blitz and threatened to torpedo health care reform if abortion remains a part of basic services in the package. In response, 72 House Democrats sent a letter to House Speaker Tom Foley (D-WA) making it clear that their support for the health care package is in jeopardy if reproductive health care, including abortion, is not included in the basic benefits package. Several House and Senate committees have already passed health care packages that include abortion coverage as a basic benefit. Only the Senate Finance Committee package separates out abortion coverage as "optional." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx YOUR CONGRESSMEMBER NEEDS TO HEAR FROM YOU If you believe that reproductive health care IS basic health care and must be included as basic services in any health care reform plan, please contact your congressmembers and tell them so. If you don't know who your Representative and two Senators are, call and ask the helpful operators at the Capitol Hill switchboard. They will ask for your zip code and connect you with the right office. Call (202) 224-3121 today. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx CATHOLICS FOR CHOICE SPEAK OUT Pro-choice Catholics spoke out against the pope's recent statements against abortion in health care reform and abortion policy at the U.N population conference scheduled for Cairo in September. "The Vatican cannot be allowed to set policy for the whole world," said Frances Kissling, the group's president. Within the last few weeks the Vatican has accused pro-choice supporters of "cultural imperialism," "abortion blackmail," and "biological colonialism." "As Catholics, we are embarrassed by both the viciousness of comments by Church officials and by the way they misrepresent and misstate ... what the U.N. document says," Kissling said. "The fact of the matter is that women want to have control of their fertility. They want modern, safe contraception." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx POPE JOHN PAUL - THE FALL TOUR On July 12 the Vatican announced that Pope John Paul II will address the United Nations and hold three stadium masses in an October visit to the United States focusing on the family. The four-day visit, the pope's first overseas trip since he injured his leg in a fall in April, will run from October 20 to 23. He will address the U.N. General Assembly on October 21. The pope will celebrate mass at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, and at Shea Stadium in New York and will visit nearby Newark, New Jersey. The visit will end in Baltimore, where he will hold an outdoor mass at Camden Yards, the Baltimore Orioles's stadium, before returning to Rome later in the day. This will be the 5th visit to the U.S. for this pope. Pope watchers wonder if it is a coincidence that the pontiff is visiting during the height of the election season. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx U.S. WILL NOT GIVE IN TO VATICAN On July 12, Timothy Wirth, undersecretary of state for global affairs, said Washington "will continue to pursue" wording in a declaration to be issued at September's United Nations Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. The disputed wording says women should have access to "the full range of reproductive health care services", including abortion. Last month, President Bill Clinton and Pope John Paul II discussed their dispute over the U.N. conference declarations when Clinton visited the pontiff at the Vatican. "Clearly, the Catholic Church will never agree" with the U.S. position as expressed in the draft declaration, Wirth said. "That, however, is the policy of the United States of America, and it is one we will continue to pursue. . . "We also believe very strongly that women ought to have the choice about the size of their families and the spacing of their children, and we believe very firmly that women ought to be empowered in every way possible so that they might have the ability to make these decisions themselves." Wirth said Washington hopes to "come out of Cairo with a very firm and broad document that is a ringing endorsement of the need to stabilize population and also a ringing endorsement about the power and opportunity of women as change-agents in the world," xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx PRO-CHOICE REPUBLICANS FIGHT REPUBLICAN PARTY PLATFORM On July 12 republican governor Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey called on the republican party to delete the anti-abortion plank form its 1996 platform and warned that the party must convince voters that it has not been captured by "extremists." The next day she was joined in her efforts by another republican governor Pete Wilson of California who faces a brutal re-election battle this fall. The republican party has had an anti-abortion plank in its platform since at least 1980. The 1992 platform says: "We believe the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We therefore reaffirm our support for a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Information Sources: California Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League-North, Alan Guttmacher Institute, Reproductive Freedom News, Culture Watch, Political Woman, various Congresspersons, various newspapers, C-Span, CNN, Reuters, AP, and UPI. Editor: Kathy Watkins, Administrative Director, CARAL-North .