Women Chose to Vote for Choice : Support for abortion rights forged a bipartisan alliance that affected the election outcome here and across the nation.

Some say the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings were a wake-up call. I say they were more like a series of verbal and visual 2-by-4s hitting American women over their heads.

The hearings galvanized them into realizing that the reelection of George Bush would mean that not only would they have a president opposed to signing a Freedom of Choice Act, but one who had the power to appoint more Supreme Court justices--just what was needed to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

So, while conventional wisdom puts Bill Clinton’s victory squarely in the economic court--after all, can all those exit polls saying the economy was the only issue be wrong?--I submit there was a powerful engine generating the move away from Bush housed in the pro-choice movement.

Clinton’s campaign might well have had alongside its “The economy, stupid” sign one that read “It’s the Supreme Court, stupid!”

So, how did the pro-choice issue play out among Orange County women?

Early on they expressed their willingness to put aside personal political agendas and cross party lines to work on this issue alone.

Did it work? Did people take notice? You bet!

When community activist and lifelong Republican Pat Cox announced that she could no longer support a President who was not pro-choice and who, by executive order, had canceled fetal tissue research, she was newsworthy enough to merit interviews in major print and electronic media as an example of the declining fortunes of the Republican Party in Orange County.

In mid-spring, when Judge Judith Ryan, backed by pro-choice Republican women, announced her candidacy for the congressional seat held by Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), the reaction from the county Republican Central Committee was so vituperative it made front page news for weeks.

Pro-choice Ryan was the kind of candidate middle-of-the-road Republicans, Democrats and independents could support. And it was clear that in the minds of the party hierarchy Ryan (and high-profile supporters 2nd District Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder and Republican political consultant Eileen Padberg) had gone so far beyond defying the party’s commandment, “Thou shalt not run against a fellow Republican,” that something tantamount to a cardinal sin had been committed.

Undeterred by the viciousness coming from her own party, Ryan pulled together a bipartisan cadre of volunteers. It was an extraordinary, if unsuccessful campaign and sent a message to Dornan that many of his female constituents felt strongly about the issue of choice.

When Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove) came up against Jo Ellen Allen--a Republican who grew up on the Phyllis Schlafly plantation--in his reelection campaign, Republican and Democratic women walked precincts together to ensure his win. And win he did--big!

The defeat of moderate candidate Tom Campbell by anti-choice Bruce Herschensohn in the June Republican primary for the six-year U.S. Senate seat set the stage for the bipartisan political action committee Pro-Choice/Orange County to support Barbara Boxer.

As Boxer’s lead diminished toward the end of the campaign it was obvious that without the help of Republican women’s crossover votes she might not win. The crossover vote held.

In 1988, George Bush took Orange County by 68%. He garnered less than 44% of the vote in ’92. At this point who knows how much of that 24% difference went to Ross Perot on the choice issue?

But one of the many women I talked to summed it up this way: “I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Clinton. But I couldn’t vote for Bush either! Not for my sake! Not for my daughters’ sake! Not for my granddaughters’ sake! Supreme Court Justices are in for life. I wasn’t going to take a chance!”

So, now what? Do women feel more at ease about the pro-choice issue?

I think so. There’s agreement that as long as the likes of Pat Buchanan, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Dornan are around, women are not entirely safe. But they trust Clinton. “After all, what would Hillary, or even Chelsea, say if he did us in?” one woman said with a laugh.

It’s encouraging that women made a difference in this election and that, in this, the most conservative of counties, the loosely knit coalition of women who set aside party loyalties in mid-spring to work for Ryan lasted through the election.

Although not completely successful in efforts to dislodge anti-choice representatives, women were willing to step up to the plate and declare themselves committed. They gave money and they worked. Just maybe they’ve begun “A League of Their Own”!