2003 election 2002: what does it mean for reproductive and sexual health.

Confident in victory, Republicans have decided they are on the right track and have therefore basically re-elected their leadership in the U.S. Congress.

The November 25 issue of The Washington Post reported that the Bush Administration and conservative Republicans will now push their social agenda since they have regained control of the Senate.

In the aftermath of the election, Democrats began devouring each other, feeding into news stories that characterized their defeat in the mid-term election as a "disaster" and "a massive debacle." In one instance, a struggle ensued between young Democratic moderates and the party's status quo over replacing retiring minority leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO).

If the objective political observers have it right, these actions were misguided.

For example, Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report has an entirely different take. Writing for the National Journal's Congress Daily, he used phrases like "no tidal wave" and "no seismic shift" to describe the most recent election. In summary, he said, "No wave happened in 2002, only a light breeze that was sufficient to tip a number of the closest races to Republicans."

While Cook and others may be right, the policy implications of the election for reproductive and sexual health advocates could indeed represent a tidal wave--one that threatens to engulf a woman's right to choose and to significantly restrict the resources and information available to Americans about sexual health.

THE SENATE AND CHOICE

The Democrats' one-vote margin in the Senate prior to the 2002 election did not produce a great deal of progressive legislation. In fact, some of their proposals differed little from what their Republican colleagues might have staked out. Yet, the Democratic majority did help block the most conservative of threats to reproductive rights passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

This was obvious when the Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) went on record pledging a swift passage of the so-called partial birth abortion ban in the Senate. The legislation--an attempt to further erode the constitutionally protected rights to abortion services guaranteed by the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973--has not come up for a vote in the Democratically controlled Senate but was passed during the 107th session in the House. Lott is intent on delivering the slippery-slope legislation to President Bush's desk, where it is expected to quickly become law.

Legislation aside, the biggest threat to reproductive and sexual health in a new Republican-controlled Senate is the appointment of President Bush's judicial nominees. Prochoice advocates have voiced concern about the fragile makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court for years. Given the slim 5-to-4 margin of victory in the Supreme Court's Stenberg v. Carhart ruling in 2000--when Nebraska's broadly worded ban on so-called partial birth abortion was struck down--and the fact that we are experiencing the longest period without a Supreme Court vacancy in over a century, there is real and genuine concern about a Bush appointee who would support a fundamental reexamination and possible overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision.

Lower-level courts are also at increasing risk. Senator Lott has indicated that the White House will re-nominate two anti-choice appellate court nominees defeated in the Democratically controlled Senate: Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen and U.S. District Court Judge Charles Pickering.

The only way to stop the judicial activism of the Bush Administration lies with the Senate's ability to filibuster a nomination. Maintaining a filibuster, and thereby killing a nomination, requires only 41 members. But there is now an anti-choice majority in the Senate and the Senators with a mixed record on choice may find blocking a nominee politically unappealing ...

CONCLUSION

Until Members return to their desks and take up the people's business, it is difficult to predict what will happen in the 108th Congress. Politics is always a fickle game, especially when international issues threaten to engulf all things domestic and make them disappear from the public eye.

And suppose that Charlie Cook is right and our current media-magnified perception of a massive Democratic debacle in the mid-term election is not reality? It probably matters little, if at all, because it is perception that triumphs and wins the minds of men and women.

That perception currently threatens an ideological conservative ascendance that does not bode well for reproductive and sexual health.

Excerpted from SIECUS Report, Volume 31, Number 2, December 2002/January 2003.

RELATED ARTICLES: SIECUS' 40 MOST INFLUENTIAL MOVIES AND TELEVISION SHOWS ON SEXUALITY AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

(listed alphabetically by title)

In honor of our 40th Anniversary, SICUS staff compiled lists of the 40 most influential books, songs, and television shows/movies about sexuality and related issues. These lists were not compiled using any scientific or survey methodology. Instead they represent the books, songs, shows, and movies that consistently rose to the top in our conversations with each other and with our families and friends.

The Accused (1988)

All in the Family (1971-79)

Boys Don't Cry (1999)

Boys in the Band (1970)

The Children's Hour (1961)

The Crying Game (1992)

DeGrassi Junior High and Degrassi High (1986-91)

Ellen (1994-98)

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask (1972)

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

General Hospital (1963--Present)

The Golden Girls (1985-92)

The Graduate (1967)

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)

Hair (1979)

Harold and Maude (1971)

I Love Lucy (1951-57)

If These Walls Could Talk (1996)

La Cage aux Folles (1978)

Last Tango in Paris (1972)

Longtime Companion (1990)

The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-77)

Maude (1972-78)

Murphy Brown (1988-98)

9 and 1/2 Weeks (1996)

One Day at a Time (1975-1984)

Personal Best (1982)

Peyton Place (1957)

Philadelphia (1993)

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Queer as Folk (2000-Present)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Roseanne (1988-97)

Seinfeld (1990-98)

Sex and the City (1998-2004)

Soap (1977-81)

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Thelma and Louise (1991)

When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Will & Grace (1998-Present)