Feminists Criticize Thomas at Hearings

Three prominent women’s rights advocates told the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday that the Roe vs. Wade ruling and the right to abortion deserve the same standing as a fundamental principle as the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling that desegregated the schools.

“We would not accept it” if a Supreme Court nominee refused to endorse the Brown ruling, Texas attorney Sarah Weddington told the senators. By the same token, the Senate should not confirm Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas because he refuses to support the fundamental right to choose abortion, she said.

Weddington has more than casual interest in the topic. In the early 1970s, she filed a lawsuit on behalf of a pregnant woman dubbed “Jane Roe” that challenged a Texas law that had made abortion a crime. The suit resulted in the 1973 ruling striking down all the nation’s laws against abortion.

“I believe if the Senate confirms Judge Thomas, he will vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade and laws as extreme as those in Texas will once again be enforced in this land,” she said.

The most dramatic moment in Thursday’s hearing came when Kate Michelman, the executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, told of her own abortion.

In 1970, Michelman had three young daughters when her husband deserted her. She soon discovered she was pregnant.

“I was devastated, without money, a job or a car,” she said. “I was even unable to get a charge account at the local five-and-dime because I wasn’t married any longer.”

She was also unable to get a legal abortion without winning the approval of four men on a local hospital board--and from the ex-husband who had abandoned her.

“Senators, perhaps now you can begin to understand the pain and anger I feel when I hear the right to choose dismissed as a mere single issue,” Michelman said. “This right is absolutely fundamental--to our dignity, to our power to shape our lives, to our ability to act in the best interests of our families.”

Former Vermont Gov. Madeleine Kunin joined in denouncing President Bush’s nominee for his refusal to speak on the abortion issue. “In a democracy, it is a sad day when silence assures victory,” she said.

But the testimony appeared to have little impact on the committee. Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) chided the abortion-rights advocates for a “failure of logic” in suggesting that Bush’s nominee indeed opposed abortion. Neither the hearings nor his writings show Thomas supports “extreme views,” Biden said.