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“But make no mistake
about it; this upcoming election is about what
kind of America we’ll live in, what kind of
choices we will have, and what kind of government
will have its way over us,”
said Hillary
Clinton. (1/30/2004)
Hillary Clinton speaking at
the National Abortion Rights League 31 anniversary
of Roe vs. Wade framed the upcoming contest for
the Presidency as a battle of Liberalism against
Conservatism. She painted Conservatism as wanting
to den science, reason and good judgment. Here
organization recently emailed quotes and a link to
the speech. Here is the speech:
The pro-choice battle is an
essential part of a larger struggle. And for too
long those of us who have defended and advocated
on behalf of a woman’s right to choose has seen
that as one battle and then civil rights and
affirmative action as another battle, and
protecting the rights of workers as a third battle
and on and on. They are all part of the same
struggle. There is an effort to undermine our
basic rights as Americans.
And you know, so many of the
people on the other side value privacy don’t they?
They value independence. Part of the struggle over
the meaning of the second amendment what is
private and what is public.
I respect that. It’s a
worthwhile definitional battle to have,but it is
also true that the right to privacy which is
enshrined in the minds of most Americans is what
is really the target of the anti-choice forces.
And by that I mean when you say to someone that
the battle over choice is really about who we are
as human beings, what kind of economy we have,
what sort of responsibility we have to accept for
ourselves, and how routed it is in a fundamental
concept of privacy, most people don’t think that
is what’s at stake at all.
But I think it is imperative to
recognize that our opponents are attempting to do
away with the right to privacy. Now last fall
during this Republican-engineered debate that
lasted for 36 hours, I’m sure not many of you were
glued to your television sets at 6 a.m. on a
Friday morning about 28 or 9 hours after the
debate had begun. But I wish every American had
been watching, because at the early hour of the
morning two senators came to the floor and
explicitly stated what has been up until now not
advertised.
And that is that the right to
privacy does not exist. On the floor of the
Senate, Senator Rick Santorum held up a pocket
version of the constitution and said “I would
challenge any person in this country, in the world
to find the words rights to privacy in this
document; it does not exist.
Later that morning agreeing with
his colleague, Senator Brownback from Kansas said
with regret that the right to privacy was and I
quote, “written by the bench over the last 40
years.”
Now what is particularly
disturbing about this is that the right to privacy
as many of you know, was an assumption that had to
be made manifest in interpreting the constitution
and that began with a decision from Connecticut,
the Griswold decision, which overturned a
Connecticut law that criminalized the right of
married couples to use contraception, and the
court at that time said you know if our
constitution means anything, if our bill of rights
stands for any rights it all begins from the
fundamental belief that every human being has the
right of privacy. Not to be invaded by an
intrusive government but to be able to live out
one’s life according to one’s values and beliefs.
Well, what we heard on the floor
of the Senate last fall turns that absolutely on
its head. There is no right to privacy in the
constitution. Therefore the line of cases that
have protected individuals from that intrusiveness
by government have no legitimacy. And it is clear
that this line of attack is really at the core of
what the opponents believe.
Their goal is to create a
society where they and their convictions, albeit
held with total good faith on their part, would
trump anyone else’s convictions or beliefs and
that in this diverse and pluralistic society of
ours we would go back to a time when not just by
social pressure but by legal compulsion certain
beliefs, certain actions, were not permitted.
How that could ever be
contemplated as something we could return to in
the 21st century may strike some as beyond the
pale, but I hope that tonight you will recognize
that this battle over choice is a much wider
struggle than just what happened to Roe v. Wade.
It’s also part of an effort to turn the clock back
on evidence and science.
You know I have come to believe
that the other side wants to turn Washington into
an evidence-free zone. It matters not what
evidence there is or what scientific research
might tell us, they will dismiss that if it in
anyway contradicts their ideology or other
beliefs.
So evidence doesn’t matter,
science doesn’t matter, privacy doesn’t matter,
the constitution doesn’t matter. This is as
serious a threat to our way of life and our system
of government that we have faced in a very long
time.
Now think about the latest State
of the Union that was delivered the other night.
Constitutional scholars and civil libertarians in
Congress from both ends of the political spectrum
say we need to examine what works and what doesn’t
work and what the costs are of the Patriot Act.
This administration made the reinstatement of that
act the very first point in the State of the
Union.
The constitution was drafted to
restrict the rights of government and expand the
rights of people. And that is what we have done
slowly but surely over more than 200 years. When
the Constitution was first written most of us in
this room were not explicitly part of it, were we?
But it took the civil war, it
took a suffrage movement, it took civil rights
legislation, it took a women’s movement, so that
we could obtain our rightful place in the
constitution. And that has been the history of
America, the expansion of rights and opportunities
and that has been to the benefit of our country.
Now of course we have an
administration that seeks to amend the
constitution in ways that empower government to
limit our freedom and control our lives. And what
is so stunning is that these advocates of great
governmental power and reduced personal freedom
can turn around and claim to be members of a
political party that is supposed to favor limited
government and they do it with a totally straight
face.
So part of what we have to
realize is that perhaps it’s time we took back the
rhetoric, you know we are the people in favor of
privacy, we are the people in favor of limited
government, except where it’s needed to do things
like apprehend corporate crooks and folks like
that, but on matters of deep personal private
conviction and action that is our party, that is
our belief.
And if we don’t begin to take
back this debate, and if we don’t begin to
convince our fellow citizens that they need to
take my colleagues seriously who want to do away
with the right to privacy, we will wake up in a
country we do not recognize. And what will be
particularly troubling is that for people my age,
Kate’s age, Julian’s age, you know those won’t be
struggles that we’ll have to really take on except
maybe we want to keep fighting into our declining
years.
But it will be a sea change for
young people, particularly for young women. And if
it is not worth fighting so that each of our
children, sons and daughters alike have the
opportunity to chart their own course in life to
make their own choices, to determine how they
define privacy, then what is worth fighting for?
And part of what I hope you will do tonight is to
spread the word.
We are not attempting to impose
our beliefs on anyone. That is at the heart of the
pro-choice movement. Our belief is that abortion
should be legal, safe, and rare. And we want to
continue the progress that was made under the
Clinton administration and a pro-choice president
to bring down the rate of abortion for young women
in this country.
But make no mistake about it;
this upcoming election is about what kind of
America we’ll live in, what kind of choices we
will have, and what kind of government will have
its way over us. And it falls to all of us, and
particularly all of you, to talk to your friends
and your neighbors, to talk to people who may not
be political, may not even register to vote yet,
may not even ever have voted, may have lots of
complaints about those of us in public life, but
tell them to get over that, what is at stake is
their future, not mine, and part of what we have
to do is to make the case, we are one Supreme
Court justice away from turning the clock back, on
women and on every other progressive movement of
the 20th century, and if that doesn’t get people
excited I don’t know what will.
If our rights are at stake, if
our privacy is at stake, if our freedom is at
stake, then let’s wake up and go fight in these
elections, to make sure we keep America on the
track that we believe is right for our country.
(1/30/2004)
Hillary
(& Bill) Clinton
