Testimony by Gloria Feldt,

President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Senate Judiciary Hearing on Appointment of John Ashcroft as Attorney General

January 18, 2001

Good morning. My name is Gloria Feldt. I am president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nation's largest and most trusted provider of reproductive health care and education. Each year, nearly five million women, men, and teenagers receive reproductive health services at the 875 centers operated by the Planned Parenthood network of 127 affiliates, serving communities in 48 states and the District of Columbia. ⁽¹⁾

Planned Parenthood is widely recognized as one of the country's major providers of abortion services, including both surgical and medical abortion, and we are proud of the important role we play in making abortion accessible to the women who need it in settings that are dignified and compassionate. However, as our name indicates, at the core of Planned Parenthood is family planning, comprising more than 90% of the services we provide.> ⁽²⁾ By family planning, I mean contraception and accompanying health care, including annual physicals and cancer screenings, and counseling and information that give people the means to make their own responsible choices. Each year, we prevent an estimated half-million unintended pregnancies through these services, and it should go without saying that preventing unintended pregnancies also prevents abortions. ⁽³⁾

And remember, that number just represents Planned Parenthood. Nationwide, family planning services prevent millions of unintended pregnancies a year ⁽⁴⁾, and also help prevent sexually transmitted infections and a wide range of other health problems. Taken together, family planning services have a profound positive effect on the lives and health not only of the women of this country, but their families, their children…in fact, just about every one of us.

For a woman to be able to determine her own destiny requires that she be able to control the timing and extent of her childbearing and the integrity of her own body. The ability to make these decisions without government interference and regardless of geography, economic circumstance, or political considerations, is the most fundamental civil and human right. That's why Planned Parenthood is so deeply concerned about Senator Ashcroft's record of attempts to interfere with the right of Americans to make these decisions, and by the genuine threat his confirmation as attorney general would represent to the rights of all Americans.

As a senator, John Ashcroft failed to cast a single vote in favor of family planning services. ⁽⁵⁾

And remember, I'm not talking about abortion here; I'm talking about preventive care. More significantly, his actions and statements over time with regard to choice and family planning represent no mere commentary on policy decisions of the day, but rather illustrate deeply held beliefs that put him at odds with the overwhelming majority of Americans who want and need reproductive health and family planning services free from government interference.

Taking one of the most extreme positions among those who oppose a woman's right to make her own reproductive choices, John Ashcroft actually believes that personhood begins before pregnancy, at the moment that sperm meets egg, the moment of fertilization. He holds this belief in spite of the fact that it contradicts the medically accepted definition of pregnancy as the time when a fertilized egg is implanted in the uterine wall -- the moment of conception. ⁽⁶⁾

Planned Parenthood does not oppose Senator Ashcroft's appointment because of his personal beliefs; we oppose him because of his record of using his positions of governmental authority to enact his views into law, and thereby to impose those views on all citizens. Cases in point: John Ashcroft has sponsored the most extreme version of the so-called "Human Life Amendment," ⁽⁷⁾ which would have given his personal ideology-based definition of pregnancy the force of law by declaring that life begins at fertilization. When he was governor of Missouri, he signed into law legislation declaring that it is the policy of Missouri that life begins at fertilization. ⁽⁸⁾

And he was one of eight senators to sign a "dear colleague" letter opposing a Senate amendment requiring that federal employees get the same coverage for contraceptive drugs and devices that they receive for other prescription drugs and devices. In the letter, they said, "We are concerned with what appears to be a loophole in the legislation regarding contraceptives that, upon failing to prevent fertilization, act de facto as abortifacients." ⁽⁹⁾

The practical, and intended, result of these and similar efforts would be not only the criminalization of abortion as we know it, but also of some of the most commonly used and effective methods of contraception, such as the birth control pill, which frequently acts to prevent implantation of the fertilized ovum.

You will hear testimony today about the fear that, as attorney general, Senator Ashcroft would try and perhaps succeed in turning back the clock on Americans' reproductive rights by eliminating the right to choose abortion. Let us not forget that the fundamental right to abortion declared and protected by Roe and Casey stands on the earlier Griswold v. Connecticut decision, which protected the closely linked and equally fundamental right to contraception. ⁽¹⁰⁾

Both are based on the fundamental right to privacy in making childbearing decisions. Senator Ashcroft's record demonstrates that he will use the power of government to impose on citizens his view that personhood begins at fertilization. To the extent that he is able to do so, he will not only strike at the right to abortion, he will strike at the right to contraception. The attorney general has an unparalleled ability, by virtue of his roles as legal advisor to the U.S. president and head of the Department of Justice, to influence the legislative agenda of the nation. I am truly hard pressed to understand how anyone would voluntarily grant that level of power and influence to an individual who has so single-mindedly pursued a personal ideological agenda, while ignoring not only medical facts but also the rights and health of millions of Americans in the process.

Yes, I am deeply concerned by what Senator Ashcroft might do as attorney general to change laws that now keep family planning and reproductive health services available to the majority of Americans who want and need them. He has demonstrated throughout his career his willingness to go to great lengths to push for laws and court decisions that reflect his personal ideological and religious views even when his views would override the deeply held views of the majority. I respect his right to hold those views, and I would fight for his right to hold them. But he has no right to impose them on the rest of us in this pluralistic democracy.

As concerned as I am about some of the things an Attorney General Ashcroft might do, I am equally concerned about some of the things he might not do.

As the nation's chief law enforcement officer, the attorney general has the ability and the responsibility to vigorously enforce laws designed to protect both providers and recipients of reproductive health services, while deterring and punishing those who employ criminal means to prevent access to those services. ⁽¹¹⁾

Chief among these laws is the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which prohibits persons from using force, threat of force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure, intimidate, or interfere with persons because they are obtaining or providing reproductive health services. The law also bars persons from intentionally damaging or destroying the property of a facility because the facility provides reproductive health services.

When the law act was passed in 1994, it came not a moment too soon. Those of us involved in the provision of reproductive health services are a hardy lot; we've had to be. But there's a limit to what anyone can or should have to endure, and the stunning litany of violent assaults, arson incidents, bombings and attempted bombings, vandalism, stalking, and physical intimidations that went on before the law was enacted would be enough to petrify the bravest of battle-tested warriors, never mind the innocent young men and women both seeking and providing these services across the country. Make no mistake; the opponents of reproductive choice take their business seriously. Individuals have been threatened; people have been injured; people have been killed -- many of them employees and volunteers at Planned Parenthood health center and at other providers throughout the country.

>The good news is that passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances act in 1994 was rewarded by a precipitous fall in the major categories of criminal violence outside health centers compared to the five years previous: the number of murders of medical staff dropped by 40%; attempted murders fell by 45%; arson dropped by 62%; and attempted arson and bombings fell by 48%. Incidents of harassment, disruption, and blockades also showed a decline. ⁽¹²⁾

The critical factor in the reduction in violence against health care providers was the active and vigorous pursuit and enforcement of the law by the Department of Justice, under the leadership of the attorney general, in cooperation with local law enforcement. By committing the necessary resources and support essential to apprehending and prosecuting perpetrators, the department sent a zero-tolerance message to would-be arsonists, bombers, and murderers.

To be sure, the most violent incidents, especially those involving the loss of life, are the ones that have garnered the most attention and still stand out in our hearts and minds. We must never forget the names of those who sacrificed their very lives at the hands of extremists -- names like Dr. David Gunn, Dr. John Bayard Britton and his volunteer escort, James H. Barrett, Shannon Lowney and Leanne Nichols, two beautiful young women who worked as receptionists; Officer Robert Sanderson, an off-duty police officer killed during the first fatal bombing of a U.S. abortion clinic; and Dr. Barnett Slepian, killed by a sniper's bullet fired through a window of his home in 1998.

We remember each and every one of those individuals, and we remember their families and what they have lost. But it would be a mistake to think that it's just those who commit the most violent of acts who must be pursued using every resource and legal avenue. For the reality is that in almost every case, the perpetrators of arson, bombings, and similar acts of violence and destruction had, at an earlier time, been involved in threats, harassments, and other acts of intimidation, and only later did they "graduate" to the more infamous violent crimes whose victims we now must sadly mourn.

James Charles Kopp, the killer of Dr. Barnett Slepian, is a case in point. Prior to murdering Dr. Slepian in 1998, he was arrested eight times in as many parts of the country for blocking entrances to clinics. And just as Senator Ashcroft has not differentiated between family planning and abortion, "family planning-only" clinics and places where abortions are also performed as targets for his legislative and other activist efforts, neither have the perpetrators of violence. Family planning clinics have been the targets of threats, vandalism, and bombings, too.

And let's be perfectly clear: the law may say that access to family planning and reproductive health services is a basic right; it may say that the provision of these services is legal and protected; and the law may even specify that it is illegal to interfere with access to family planning and reproductive health services. But if those laws are not vigorously enforced by the Department of Justice; and if providers are too scared for their lives to offer the services; and if Americans are too afraid to access them, then all of the laws will be nothing but empty vessels.

As leaders in the public eye, I'm sure you know more than a little bit about what it means to be out there in a world where there's always someone who doesn't agree with you on something, and occasionally that someone has a scary way of telling you so. Like you, I get letters from average Americans on a daily basis expressing their views on our issues. Fortunately, the vast majority of them take a calm tone. In fact, most of the letters we receive are thank-you notes, expressing gratitude for ways in which Planned Parenthood improved the authors' lives through services we provided. Then there are the other letters. I'll read just a few lines of one.

"You people will pay personally for what you are doing…I will support every terrorist possible to end the bloodshed that you have and are bringing upon the white race…I won't be as dramatic and sloppy as a Tim McVeigh…your money has not prevented those pigs from being killed...neither did the laws, or the pig-cops who protect you…"

A Department of Justice investigation revealed that John Kelley, the man who wrote the letter I just quoted from, had a past history of both of protesting at clinics and stalking women. ⁽¹³⁾ The FBI moved aggressively to identify and arrest him, and in September 1999, he pled guilty to sending threatening e-mail messages to reproductive health care providers in New York and Georgia and was sentenced to 16 months in prison. Believe me when I tell you that I can't help but wonder what he might try next time, and whether he'll be pursued as vigorously as the last time. And there are so many other John Kelleys out there, waiting for their chance, watching what we do...watching what you do.

That's why the role of attorney general is so critical in vigorously enforcing the law and pursuing the John Kelleys of this country, and why the possibility of a John Ashcroft as attorney general has me and so many others afraid, not just for our rights, but for our very lives.

The best way to predict how John Ashcroft would act as U.S. attorney general is to look at his performance in Missouri when he held office there. During the time that John Ashcroft was attorney general and then governor of Missouri, he failed to respond to the increase in anti-choice intimidation, harassment, and violence at Missouri reproductive health clinics. A particular example was his reaction to the devastation by arson of a clinic operated by Reproductive Health Services, now part of Planned Parenthood, in June 1986 in Manchester, Missouri. Despite our best efforts to find a single public statement from him at that time, it appears that he said absolutely nothing.

Throughout his career, John Ashcroft has fought hard for the things he believes in. By itself, that is a quality each one of us can and should admire. But he has taken his fight to the point of using his power and positions to impose his beliefs on every one of us, and that we should not and must not accept. He also has failed to fight for the rights of those with whom he disagrees, especially when the disagreement concerns the very nature of human and civil rights. That, too, we should not and must not accept. As attorney general, John Ashcroft would have the responsibility to put aside his personal beliefs and use every resource at his disposal to vigorously enforce the laws that protect the rights, the health, and the very lives of all Americans. Based on his record, we simply do not believe he will do that, and that is why we hope he will not be confirmed.

Thank you.

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1. ¹Planned Parenthood Federation of America. January 2000. This is Planned Parenthood [Brochure].

2. ² Ibid