Last Thursday, Feb. 3, two important events shaped the advocacy for choice. One was on the local level, as the Amherst Feminist Alliance celebrated the 32nd anniversary of the Supreme Court case Roe vs. Wade. The other event, on the national level, featured a rather different look at the status of abortion in our country, as the Senate confirmed Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States. While Gonzales' nomination is frightening to advocates of human rights everywhere, it is especially frightening to me as an advocate for abortion rights in this country. Gonzales is the second anti-choice Attorney General that President Bush has nominated. Throughout the last four years, President Bush has waged a war on women that has been well-documented by individuals and groups including author Anna Quindlen and the non-profit organization Planned Parenthood. The successful appointment of Gonzales means that he has won the next battle in this war.

In November 2003, the President signed the so-called Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which outlawed a procedure commonly used in abortions. The Act, since its passage, has been found unconstitutional by more than one federal court-the court decisions cite the lack of a health exception and the fact that the Act's language was vague. This vague language expanded the actual banned procedure to encompass more than just late-term abortions. Anti-choice advocates present late-term abortion (also known as "partial-birth abortion") as a common practice, one that painfully kills a perfect fetus-a representation not based in reality. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, abortions after 21 weeks represent less than two percent of all abortions that occur annually in the United States. Most of these abortions are due to health complications rather than frivolous reasons.

In fact, the term partial-birth abortion is also inaccurate and is non-existent in medical environments. The procedure that the Partial-birth Abortion Ban Act outlaws is actually also used in abortions as early as 15 weeks, effectively tying the hands of doctors across the country. While three state courts, including New York, Nebraska, and California, have ruled that the Partial-Birth Abortion Act is unconstitutional, the Department of Justice has filed an appeal to these rulings, leaving the rights of women and doctors to make decisions about the females' bodies shaky at best.

This slippery slope is not only infringing on abortion rights. Shortly after the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was passed, John Ashcroft appointed the Department of Justice to enforce the ban, which included seeking the power to investigate women's private medical files for any records of partial-birth abortions. Many realized how perilously close they were to losing their basic rights of medical confidentiality and privacy, and public outcry prevented this measure from succeeding. This does not mean that the battle is over, however, as new bills emerge to limit women's rights to abortions. This includes the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act of 2004, which allows insurance providers to refuse to comply with state laws regarding abortion. Legislation such as this act makes it clear that abortion opponents do not see fit to allow women and their doctors to make decisions about abortion. Rather, the choice is left up to the moral convictions of the owners of private insurance companies. The popularity of Ashcroft's actions among anti-choice Americans made it clear that the government will not hesitate to remove basic abortion rights sometime in the future.

The inaccuracy of the representation of late-term abortion is only one reason to oppose legislation that bans it. The essence of abortion rights is to let the decision of whether to carry through with a pregnancy remain private-between a woman and her doctor. Anti-choice groups continually look to chisel away at these rights by pushing the parameters by creating exaggerations and never truly looking at the pregnant woman with empathy and understanding.

As is seen in President Bush's successful appointment of Alberto Gonzales, the issues of women's rights and human rights are closely tied, making the fight for access to abortion a slippery slope in the ongoing attack on human rights. While many Amherst students came to the Feminist Alliance event last week, even more pro-choice and pro-human rights students on Amherst's campus and across the country need to show that President Bush's efforts to chip away at the right to choose will not be accepted without a fight.

For more information visit www.plannedparenthood.com.

Faulkner can be reached at lefaulkner@amherst.edu