Road to the White House: Compare the Candidates on Women's Rights Issues

Reproductive Rights: What They Say

George W. Bush:

Opposes abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or to save a woman's life.

Names anti-women, anti-abortion justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas as his "most admired" on the Supreme Court.

Opposes the use of U.S. funds for family planning in developing countries.

Supports unrealistic abstinence-only sex education programs.

Opposes contraception access and sexuality information programs.

Supports an unconscionable policy which prohibits military women and military dependents from obtaining an abortion in a military hospital, even if they pay with their own funds—forcing them to risk their health in local clinics or hospitals abroad.

Opposes needed funding for Title X domestic family planning programs.

Believes RU 486, the medical abortion pill, is wrong.

Supports the Republican platform which calls for a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution that would outlaw abortion.

Believes scientific research that results in the destruction of embryos is morally wrong.

John Kerry:

Supports abortion rights and access to contraceptives.

Opposes the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, on the basis that the ban was put in place for ideological reasons not shared by the majority of Americans.

Opposes and plans to overturn the Global Gag Rule and restore U.S. global leadership in family planning and population assistance.

Ralph Nader:

Supports abortion rights and access to contraceptives.

Reproductive Rights: What They've Done

George W. Bush:

 Signed the Abortion Procedures Ban, also misleadingly called the Partial Birth Abortion ban, which prohibits the most common and safe procedures used in second and third trimester abortions. The ban has been found unconstitutional by three circuit courts and the Supreme Court, because there is no health exception.

 Consistently increased federal funding to unrealistic abstinence-only education programs.

 Consistently cut funding to the United Nations Population Fund for family planning programs that aid millions of poor women and children in developing nations.

 Reinstated and expanded the Global Gag Rule, which denies U.S. international family planning aid to any non-governmental organization providing, or even discussing, abortion, which according to United Nations Population Fund projections will increase the global abortion rate and leave millions of poor women and children without health care in 150 developing countries.

 Signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act to expand the legal status of embryos and fetuses by making harm to a fetus a federal crime, while not increasing protection for abused pregnant women.

 Named to the FDA Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee Dr. David Hager, a Kentucky physician who refuses to prescribe birth control to unmarried women, recommends scripture for PMS and leads the effort to withdraw FDA approval of mifepristone (RU-486).

 Proposed eliminating contraceptive coverage from Federal Employees' Health Benefits insurance plan.

 Placed a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, which has significantly slowed the development of potentially life-saving cures for serious genetic conditions and diseases.

 Named the anniversary of Roe v. Wade the Sanctity of Human Life Day and urged abortion rights opponents to observe the day with prayer to "affirm commitment to the sanctity of human life."

 The FDA, under the Bush administration, denied an application to make emergency contraception available without prescription. The FDA decision contradicted the recommendation of two panels of its own medical experts.

In a stunning violation of medical privacy, the Bush Justice Department subpoenaed women's medical records from hospitals and clinics, ostensibly to show that late term abortions were not always performed due to medical necessity.

John Kerry:

Supported women's right to reproductive health care by voting against the Abortion Procedures Ban (so-called Partial-Birth Abortion Ban).

Protected the rights of military women by supporting the Murray/Snowe amendment which would lift the ban on military abortions.

Supported coverage for birth control prescriptions in employee health insurance benefits by co-sponsoring the Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive Coverage Act (EPICC).

Voted in favor of federal health care coverage of abortion procedures for federal employees.

Voted against the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which could eventually place the rights of the fetus in competition with the rights of the woman.

Opposed the FDA decision to restrict access to emergency contraception: "(C)learly, this White House is more interested in appealing to its electoral base than it is in protecting women's health."

Ralph Nader:

Attended the March for Women's Lives.
List of Resources