Posted on 09/23/2003 7:58:28 AM PDT by pittsburgh gop guy
Leader of national abortion rights group to resign
Tuesday, September 23, 2003BY BRETT LIEBERMAN
Of Our Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - Kate Michelman, who cut her teeth in Harrisburg and went on to become one of the nation's most influential abortion rights advocates, is stepping down after 18 years of heading the country's leading abortion rights group.
Michelman, 61, was executive director of Planned Parenthood in Harrisburg before becoming president of what was then called the National Abortion Rights Action League in 1985. The organization became known as NARAL Pro-Choice America.
Michelman worked to expand area reproductive health services and trained students and residents in child development at the psychiatry department of the Penn State University School of Medicine.
Michelman said yesterday she planned to resign next year following the April 25 March for Freedom of Choice in Washington, D.C., to care for her ailing husband. She will continue to be NARAL's president emeritus.
"I made the decision to step down from the day-to-day work of running a large national organization so that I could both meet those family responsibilities and devote myself actively to the most urgent priority facing the pro-choice movement -- electing a president who will protect our right to choose," Michelman said.
Michelman has been an impassioned leader of the abortion rights cause, testifying before Congress, working to shape state and federal legislation, leading large rallies and campaigning for candidates who supported women's reproductive rights.
"The cause, I think, has always been right and just, but Kate has brought a level of passion and focus to the cause that I don't think has been seen in a long time," Gov. Ed Rendell said in an interview earlier this year.
Michelman and NARAL were vocal supporters of Rendell, spending $500,000 on his behalf in last year's governors race.
Next 4 years pivotal:
For all the progress abortion rights supporters have made since the Supreme Court granted women the right to abortion in 1973, Michelman said that decision could soon be reversed.
"The next four years will almost certainly see at least two Supreme Court vacancies," she said. "If George W. Bush is allowed to fill those seats, it will mean the end of reproductive privacy and the end of Roe v. Wade."
In an interview last year, Michelman warned that abortion rights supporters have become too complacent and many women falsely assume their right to an abortion is guaranteed.
"Roe v. Wade is hanging by a thread in the Supreme Court," she said of the landmark ruling that legalized abortion.
"The anti-choice movement is committed to doing whatever is necessary to taking away a woman's right to choose," she said. "Pro-choice people are less zealous and less focused on how threatened the right really is."
She has her critics:
Critics, however, called Michelman's positions extreme.
"Many policy positions taken by NARAL under Kate Michelman -- for example, supporting legal abortion for any reason, opposing restrictions even on partial-birth abortion, opposing parental notification requirements for minors, and insisting that the law must not recognize the existence of unborn babies even when they are killed in violent crimes -- are rejected by overwhelming majorities of the American people in polls, and increasingly are rejected by the lawmakers whom they elect," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee.
Michelman became involved in the abortion rights movement in 1970 after the 28-year-old mother of three learned she was pregnant shortly after her husband left her for another woman. She had to convince a panel of four male doctors that she was incapable of caring for another child and then needed written approval from her husband to have an abortion.
BRETT LIEBERMAN: (202) 383-7833- or blieberman@patriot-news.com
Michelman became involved in the abortion rights movement in 1970 after the 28-year-old mother of three learned she was pregnant shortly after her husband left her for another woman. She had to convince a panel of four male doctors that she was incapable of caring for another child and then needed written approval from her husband to have an abortion.
Incapable of caring for another what? So her husband was a louse and gave permission for their 4th redheaded child to be killed. This act of hers (and her husband's, and the father of the child) may in part explain her depraved thinking to this day.
Note also the sexism inherent in the "male doctors" comment, in light of the article's omission of the sex of the Michelman's murdered baby.
Cordially,
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