NARAL Pro-Choice America Delivers More than 130,000 Petitions Opposing "Unborn Victims of Violence Act" to Senators

Washington, DC – With the Senate poised to take up legislation this week that would grant legal status to fetuses and embryos (the so-called “Unborn Victims of Violence Act”), NARAL Pro-Choice America, the leading national advocate for privacy and a woman’s right to choose, delivered more than 130,000 petitions to Senators today.

NARAL Pro-Choice America President Kate Michelman presented the petitions at a Capitol Hill news conference and offered the following remarks:

Leave it to this Congress to turn protecting motherhood into a political issue.

If it were not for a zealous anti-choice leadership, the Senate could pass a bill 100-0 that punishes criminals and addresses women’s losses, without entangling it in the debate over abortion rights. Instead, we’ll see a divisive political struggle, scheduled for the goal of maximum political theater.

Why? Because the anti-choice movement, from President Bush on down, has insisted on using the issue of punishing violence that harms or ends a pregnancy as cover for its campaign to undermine a woman’s right to choose.

There’s no disagreement on the horrific nature of violent crimes against a pregnant woman that harm or end her pregnancy, and the need for harsh penalties against those who commit such terrible acts. The pro-choice movement is committed to the fundamental right of every woman to act on her choice to have a child and bring new life into this world when she chooses to – and we oppose any attempt to deny them of that right, whether by anti-choice judges or violent criminals.

The only difference between this bill and the Feinstein alternative is simple – giving separate legal status to a fetus or embryo. The reason it’s there was explained by anti-choice leader Samuel Casey. “In as many areas as we can, we want to put on the books that the embryo is a person…That sets the stage for a jurist to acknowledge that human beings at any stage of development deserve protection – even protection that would trump a woman’s interest in terminating a pregnancy.”

In other words, anti-choice leaders have turned consensus into contention because of a provision that does nothing to punish any criminal or protect any pregnant woman, but is part of a long-term effort to erode Roe v Wade.

It’s an effort that is not limited to this bill. Around the country, anti-choice legislators have moved forward with initiatives to grant separate legal status to the fetus or embryo as early as the moment after conception. They are even getting bolder in trying to force direct legal challenges to Roe in a number of states, and in two federal courts.

Clearly, with potential Supreme Court vacancies looming, opponents of abortion are doing everything possible to create the conditions in which a court that's had its anti-choice numbers bolstered could achieve the goal of reversing that historic Roe v. Wade decision. The bill before the Senate is part and parcel of that overarching campaign.

Today, we’re bringing to the Senate more than 130,000 petitions from pro-choice Americans who expect better of their national leaders than using tragedy as cover for promoting ideological extremism. They’ve seen through the inflammatory rhetoric to what this bill really does, and called on their Senators to take a wiser course.

Our volunteers will be distributing these across the Senate office buildings today, and I hope that Senators will join pro-choice Americans in seeing through the rhetoric and taking sensible action. 

Contact:
Ted Miller, 202.973.3032