Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 28, 1993 TAG: 9301280360
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
UNSHACKLING MEDICINE, SCIENCE
THE ABORTION issue, which has sharply divided Americans for more than a quarter of a century and loomed large in recent political elections, was not resolved with the inauguration of President Bill Clinton, a supporter of abortion rights. Doubtless, it will continue to divide, and to provoke debate.But more than just the most fervent of abortion-rights supporters should be grateful to Clinton for his recent executive decisions pertaining to abortion. With a few strokes of his pen, in one of his first actions as president, Clinton ended a handful of mean-spirited federal policies that went beyond abortion rights to matters that never should have been caught up in abortion politics.
Among these were policies that stifled scientific research offering hope to victims of debilitating illnesses, and policies that mandated federal bullying of the medical profession.
These policies were put in place by the Reagan and Bush administrations to curry favor with anti-abortion forces. But some abortion foes saw them for what they were: morally repugnant.
Not only supporters of abortion rights have family members who are victims - or are victims themselves - of Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease, of diabetes, leukemia or epilepsy. They stand to gain if fetal-tissue research leads to more effective treatment, possibly even cures, of these diseases.
Yet medical researchers were shackled by Reagan/Bush - on the absurd premise that their work might cause more women to seek abortions.
In addition to lifting the ban on federal funding for fetal-tissue research, Clinton also has moved swiftly:
To end the Reagan/Bush gag rule that prohibited most health workers at federally financed clinics from discussing abortion with pregnant patients - often the poorest of America's poor women - even if the patients' lives were at risk.
To end a spiteful restriction on U.S. funds being used for worldwide family-planning programs if the programs, sponsored by the United Nations, included information or counseling on abortion. (Never mind that by denying family-planning information, this Bush-era policy may have led to increased abortions in some overpopulated countries.)
To end a regulation prohibiting women in the armed forces, or the wives or daughters of servicemen, from getting an abortion in a U.S. military hospital - even at the women's own expense.
To clear the way for removal of George Bush's ban on the private importation of RU 486, a French abortion-inducing pill that may also help in the treatment of certain cancers and other diseases.
That Clinton took these actions on the 20th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision should serve as a forceful reminder: Abortion is legal in the United States. It offends many that abortion remains legal, and it's their right to continue efforts to protest and overturn that reality.
But the federal government's hamstringing of medicine and science should not be part of those efforts. Clinton was right to say "no more."