By Peter J. Smith
WASHINGTON, D.C., February 19, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Not all pro-abortion feminists from the heyday of the Sexual Revolution are behind Hillary Clinton as their abortion candidate. Frances Kissling, former president of the abortion advocacy group, Catholics for Free Choice, has instead come out swinging for Barack Obama, whom she believes is the best abortion candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“While I believe in the nitty gritty of a day-to-day legislative agenda, there will be little difference between Clinton and Obama, I am convinced that in the larger struggle to complete the social transformation promised by Roe, Obama’s instincts and values will bring us closer to that transformation,” said Kissling.
Kissling, who has been called the “philosopher of the pro-choice movement” among abortion advocates, said she disagreed with the 10 fellow radical feminists, such as Martha Burk, Cecelia Fire Thunder, Irene Natividad, Ellie Smeal, and Gloria Steinem, who endorsed Sen. Clinton in a recent Huffington Post article.
She agreed that both Clinton and Obama would nominate pro-Roe v. Wade justices, overturn the Mexico City policy, and give back funding to UNFPA, which lost US funds after being exposed for its cooperation in coerced abortions in China. But for Kissling nothing indicates that Obama would be any less of a pro-abortion leader than Clinton.
The main difference between the two candidates, for Kissling, was that Sen. Clinton was not radical enough on the issue of abortion and “had more than once failed the movement.” Kissling criticized Clinton for failing to require abortion coverage in her health care reform plan as First Lady in 1994, and for allowing “any provider, religious or not, to refuse to provide any service they deemed immoral and still participate in the plan and reap the benefits of participation.”
According to Kissling Clinton still has not sufficiently addressed whether her plan for universal government health care would require abortion coverage or whether it “will give religious organizations the right to refuse to provide services they consider ‘immoral’ – emergency contraception, voluntary sterilization, condoms to prevent HIV, and assisted reproduction come to mind.”
Kissling also chastised her radical feminist colleagues for not holding Sen. Clinton to task for not restoring Medicaid funding for abortions, which were banned under the Hyde Amendment signed by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
“It is no longer about ‘winning, the culture war. It is about completing the social transformation that Roe began but did not solidify,” Kissling concluded. “That task, I believe, will best be accomplished by a president who sees her or his role as calling us to greatness … I think Barack Obama is the person who can do that.”