Fight for top-deck seats on the Titanic: WASHINGTON VIEWPOINT, p. 5
Dublin Core
Title
Fight for top-deck seats on the Titanic: WASHINGTON VIEWPOINT, p. 5
Description
"(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of three parts on the state of “libe [sic], liberty and the pursuit of happiness” 201 years later.)
As Congress returns from its Fourth of July vacation this week, its members face a stern test of whether they understand what it was they were celebrating last week.
For, sometime this week, a House-Senate conference committee is expected to come eyeball-to-eyeball with the basic Fourth of July question: “What is the true business of this nation?”
In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge told a meeting of editors: “The business of America is business.”
Five years later, the nation was broke.
It recovered, of course, because being broke financially is terrible, but not serious.
We’re on the verge again, but this time it is serious. The issue is not money; it’s people.
The test comes before a conference committee which must resolve House and Senate differences on something called the Hyde Amendment.
It is, in short, an amendment to prevent the use of federal money (through Medicaid) to pay for abortions, despite the fact that a Supreme Court ruling in 1973 held that all women who want them are entitled to abortions.
It becomes an issue over the government’s role in the extremely unpleasant (but financially profitable) business of abortion.
Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican, tacked his amendment to an otherwise routine appropriations bill for the departments of Labor and Health, Education and Welfare (HEW)
Opponents of the Hyde Amendment insist that withholding Medicaid funds for abortions discriminates against poor women who cannot afford to pay for abortions on their own.
But most of Hyde’s colleagues in the House agreed with him, adopting language to deny funds “except where a physicians has certified the abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother.”
The Senate disagreed by broadening the limitations to where they have no meaningful effect.
The Senate version would make the use of funds for abortions illegal “except where the life of the mother would be endangered to term, or where medically necessary, or for the treatment of rape or incest victims.”
The key Senate language that broadened its version- “or where medically necessary”- was offered by Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, the only black senator.
The strong position taken by Brooke made unanimous the vote of all black members of Congress. They either favor abortions, or oppose discrimination against black and poor women who want them and cannot get them without federal funds.
In addition to Brooke in the Senate, all 16 members of the Congressional Black Caucus (in the House) opposed the Hyde Amendment.
In a letter to their white Congressional colleagues a month ago, Caucus members Louis Stokes of Ohio, Yvonne B. Burke of California, and Maryland’s Parren J. Mitchell wrote:
“This is not simply a question of abortion. It is a question of whether some will attack what they perceive as a problem through the weakest members of society. To forbid a constitutional right of the basis of wealth cuts at the very foundation of our system of laws.”
In a strenuous argument on the House floor, Stoke presented the Caucus view that denying funds would run poor women to unsafe, back-alley clinics.
“Congress cannot legally justify the prohibition of legal and safe abortions to the poor when safe and legal abortions are available to all other women,” Stokes argued.
The view of Rep. Hyde was equally strong:
“I certainly would like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion, a rich woman, a middle-class woman, or a poor woman… A life is a life. The life of a little ghetto kid is just as important as the life of a rich person.”
And there the issue is joined.
The black members of Congress would certainly agree on the high value of “ghetto” children, and children in general. And despite the contention of Caucus chairman Mitchell that Hyde and his supporters are guilty of “hypocrisy,” the issue becomes people- not the cost of the abortion.
It is likely that the black members of Congress, honorably accustomed to defending the rights of the black and poor, are in this instance, trying to guarantee them top-deck seats on the sinking Titanic.
The business of America not be business.
The business of American must be people, and it must begin with “life” and continue with “liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”"
As Congress returns from its Fourth of July vacation this week, its members face a stern test of whether they understand what it was they were celebrating last week.
For, sometime this week, a House-Senate conference committee is expected to come eyeball-to-eyeball with the basic Fourth of July question: “What is the true business of this nation?”
In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge told a meeting of editors: “The business of America is business.”
Five years later, the nation was broke.
It recovered, of course, because being broke financially is terrible, but not serious.
We’re on the verge again, but this time it is serious. The issue is not money; it’s people.
The test comes before a conference committee which must resolve House and Senate differences on something called the Hyde Amendment.
It is, in short, an amendment to prevent the use of federal money (through Medicaid) to pay for abortions, despite the fact that a Supreme Court ruling in 1973 held that all women who want them are entitled to abortions.
It becomes an issue over the government’s role in the extremely unpleasant (but financially profitable) business of abortion.
Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican, tacked his amendment to an otherwise routine appropriations bill for the departments of Labor and Health, Education and Welfare (HEW)
Opponents of the Hyde Amendment insist that withholding Medicaid funds for abortions discriminates against poor women who cannot afford to pay for abortions on their own.
But most of Hyde’s colleagues in the House agreed with him, adopting language to deny funds “except where a physicians has certified the abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother.”
The Senate disagreed by broadening the limitations to where they have no meaningful effect.
The Senate version would make the use of funds for abortions illegal “except where the life of the mother would be endangered to term, or where medically necessary, or for the treatment of rape or incest victims.”
The key Senate language that broadened its version- “or where medically necessary”- was offered by Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, the only black senator.
The strong position taken by Brooke made unanimous the vote of all black members of Congress. They either favor abortions, or oppose discrimination against black and poor women who want them and cannot get them without federal funds.
In addition to Brooke in the Senate, all 16 members of the Congressional Black Caucus (in the House) opposed the Hyde Amendment.
In a letter to their white Congressional colleagues a month ago, Caucus members Louis Stokes of Ohio, Yvonne B. Burke of California, and Maryland’s Parren J. Mitchell wrote:
“This is not simply a question of abortion. It is a question of whether some will attack what they perceive as a problem through the weakest members of society. To forbid a constitutional right of the basis of wealth cuts at the very foundation of our system of laws.”
In a strenuous argument on the House floor, Stoke presented the Caucus view that denying funds would run poor women to unsafe, back-alley clinics.
“Congress cannot legally justify the prohibition of legal and safe abortions to the poor when safe and legal abortions are available to all other women,” Stokes argued.
The view of Rep. Hyde was equally strong:
“I certainly would like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion, a rich woman, a middle-class woman, or a poor woman… A life is a life. The life of a little ghetto kid is just as important as the life of a rich person.”
And there the issue is joined.
The black members of Congress would certainly agree on the high value of “ghetto” children, and children in general. And despite the contention of Caucus chairman Mitchell that Hyde and his supporters are guilty of “hypocrisy,” the issue becomes people- not the cost of the abortion.
It is likely that the black members of Congress, honorably accustomed to defending the rights of the black and poor, are in this instance, trying to guarantee them top-deck seats on the sinking Titanic.
The business of America not be business.
The business of American must be people, and it must begin with “life” and continue with “liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”"
Creator
Samuel F. Yette
Publisher
Baltimore Afro-American
Date
1977-7-16
Collection
Citation
Samuel F. Yette, “Fight for top-deck seats on the Titanic: WASHINGTON VIEWPOINT, p. 5,” African American Fourth of July, accessed April 27, 2024, https://africanamerican4th.omeka.net/items/show/266.