From .......... GOVERNING AMERICA - An Insider's Report
From the White House and the Cabinet
By Joseph A. Califano, Jr.
69 .................... ABORTION
I called Bill Foege, whom I had recently appointed director of the center, and asked him to check out the reports. He came to Washington and nervously told me that while it was difficult to establish the facts because the woman might have gone to Mexico to keep the abortion secret, she had received two Medicaid-funded abortions before the Hyde amendment took effect.
"So we may have a confirmed death from an abortion improperly performed on an otherwise Medicaid-eligible woman,"
Foege said, resting his paper on his lap as though trying to produce relief from a tension that still persisted.
I studied him silently for a moment and then realized that he was concerned about my view of the centers role in keeping abortion statistics.
"Look," I said, "you must understand this: I want you to keep statistics as accurately as you can, to investigate as meticulously as you can. Our obligation Ñ whatever my views Ñ is to set the facts before the Congress and the people. Particularly on an issue like this, we must maintain the integrity of HEW's data. The only way to deal with an issue this hot is to be accurate."
His face brightened in relief. "That's just the way I feel," he said.
WHILE I could not predict the route or timetable, I sensed that the abortion issue was inexorably headed for my desk. On June 20, 1977, the Supreme Court decided in Beal v. Doe and Maher v. Roe that the federal government had no constitutional obligation to fund discretionary abortions that were not medically necessary. Like so many ardently awaited Supreme Court decisions, this one created as much controversy as it resolved. The Court had cleared the way to having the Hyde amendment go into effect, thus restricting Medicaid funding to abortions where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term. The Court had also moved the debate back into the political arena, to the floors of the House and Senate and the HEW regulatory process.
I asked my staff to prepare a guideline to implement the Hyde amendment. Judge Dooling in Brooklyn would now have to withdraw his order blocking enforcement of that amendment and I wanted to be ready to issue the necessary instructions the same day the judge acted. Any delay would only give the pro- and anti-abortionists more time to demonstrate. If I could act immediately, there would be only one day of newspaper and television coverage.
As we planned to move as quickly and quietly as possible, the President was hit with a question about the Supreme Court decision at his July 12 press conference. I was signing routine mail, casually watching the televised conference, when Judy Woodruff of NBC News caught my attention with a question asking how
"comfortable" the President was with the recent Supreme Court decision ''which said the federal government was not obligated to provide money for abortions for women who cannot afford to pay for them."
70 .................. GOVERNING AMERICA
The President reiterated his view that
"I would like to prevent the federal government financing abortion."
Woodruff followed up:
"Mr. President, how fair do you believe it is then that women who can afford to get an abortion can go ahead and have one and women who cannot afford to are precluded?"
In an echo of a statement by John Kennedy, the President answered,
"Well, as you know, there are many things in life that are not fair, that wealthy people can afford and poor people can't. But I don't believe that the federal government should act to try to make these opportunities exactly equal, particularly when there is a moral factor involved."
I had been leaning back in my chair and almost went over backward. I was stunned at the President's response. It was clear to me that he had no idea of the bitter reaction his comment would incite. It couldn't have been deliberate. At worst, it was an on-the-spot clumsy attempt to appeal to fiscal conservatives and right-to-lifers; at best it was an inept, off-the-top-of-his-head answer to a question for which he was not prepared. Within an hour Eileen Shanahan was in my office. Tears of anger welling in her eyes, to tell me that the press wanted my comment on the President's "life is unfair" remark.
"None, none, none," I said.
The only person who told me she agreed with the comment of the President was Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who wrote me on July 15:
"In terms of the equity argument, I think the President's answer is satisfactory.''
It was one of the few times I can recall disagreeing with the political judgment of this extraordinary woman. She had become and remained a dedicated and politically persistent participant in the abortion controversy, an energetic opponent of federal funding.
In July, unknown to the public, to most of the antagonists prowling the halls of Congress with roses and hangers and, indeed, to most congressmen and senators, a secret compromise remarkably close to the agreement the House and Senate would reach in December was beginning to take shape in the mind of Eunice Kennedy Shriver. She called me, as she was undoubtedly calling others, in the middle of the month, three weeks after the Supreme Court tossed the issue back to the Congress. She had
''some language that might be acceptable to both the House and Senate" and end the widespread access to abortion. "We've got to face the rape and incest argument, don't you think?"
And, spraying words in her staccato Massachusetts accent, she added:
"We also have to deal with serious damage to the mother Ñ physical damage, not this fuzzy psychological stuff."
Eunice read me some language and concluded,
"I'm sending this over to you, personally and confidentially, and you can use it as your own."
- END QUOTE -
GOVERNING AMERICA- An Insider's Report
From the White House and the Cabinet
By Joseph A. Califano, Jr.
Published by Simon and Schuster 1981
ISBN 0-671-25428-6