Washington, DC – Kate Michelman, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America issued the following statement today in response to President Bush’s expected signing of legislation granting separate legal status to embryos and fetuses:

"Everyone agrees on the need to protect pregnant women and the developing lives within them from harm – and with just a few phone calls, the President could have persuaded Congress to pass a consensus bill doing so without entangling it in the abortion rights issue.

Instead, with his second major anti-choice bill signing in six months, President Bush is making his priorities clear -- and curtailing women’s privacy and the right to choose is at the top of the list. President Bush is making good on his pledge to do everything in his power to restrict a woman’s right to choose.

Pro-choice Americans aren’t going to forget this President’s record, with its steady drumbeat of attacks on reproductive freedom. We’re going to send him a strong message with our March on Washington April 25 that we won’t stand silently by as our rights are taken away."

This bill joins a list of anti-choice actions by the Bush Administration that include: 

· Signing the first-ever federal law criminalizing abortion;

· Subpoenaing private medical records of thousands of women who’ve had abortions;

· Nominating scores of anti-choice judges to lifetime seats on the federal bench – and forcing two of the most extreme past the Senate without a vote through recess appointments;

· Reimposing the global gag rule, barring U.S. aid to international family planning programs that provide counseling on abortion; and

· Shifting funds toward dangerous abstinence-only education programs that censor information about contraception.