The Network of Righteousness.

Right-wing politics in the United States is not monopolized by Vatican loyalists and Protestant followers of such leaders as James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell. Add to the mix the Federalist Society, with its membership of 25,000--composed of lawyers, law professors, law students, judges, and many highly placed government officials.

For example, its roster includes Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia; Federal Appellate Judge Frank Easterbrook; Edwin Meese, former U.S. Attorney General under Ronald Reagan; former Solicitor General Charles Fried; Civil Rights Commissioner Linda Chavez; and, from Michigan, U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham, Governor John Engler, and five state supreme court justices. Other important Federalist Society litigators include James Bopp, counsel to the National Right to Life Committee and the Christian Coalition, and Michael Klausner of the Individual Rights Foundation, who defended the California anti-affirmative action law.

Probably the most influential member is Mormon Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. As chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee he has successfully blocked confirmation of President Clinton's judicial nominations so that, despite eight years under Clinton, there are still more sitting Republican-appointed federal judges than those appointed by Democrats. Hatch is also cochair with Robert Bork of the Federalist Society's board of trustees.

An article by Professor Jerry M. Landay in the March 2000 Washington Monthly describes the Federalist Society as "the best organized, best funded, and most effective legal network operating in this country" and credits it as "accomplishing in the country what Republicans can't achieve politically." For example, in their book Hunting the President, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons describe the behind-the-scenes meetings of Federalist Society members that led to Kenneth Starr's prosecution of Bill Clinton. And the society succeeded not only in moving such people as Robert Bork, Ralph Winter, and Richard Posner into positions in federal court judgeships but helped place Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. This, in turn, has brought student graduates who are ideologically right wing into influential Supreme Court clerkships.

Two of the society's key activities are providing speakers to law schools and funding visiting professorships. There are now lawyers' chapters of the Federalist Society in at least sixty cities across the United States and student chapters in 140 of the 182 accredited law schools. Many of the activities of the student chapters and societies are funded by such right-wing foundations as the Olin, Scaife, and Bradley foundations; the Lilly Endowment; and huge corporations (Microsoft gave the Federalist Society $75,000 in 1999).

Beyond the society, offshoot groups, led by such key members as C. Boyden Gray (former White House counsel under George Bush and the current chair of Citizens for a Sound Economy), receive millions of dollars from corporations such as Exxon, to oppose the campaign to reduce global warming, and Philip Morris, to oppose higher cigarette taxes.

Clearly then, beyond its mere listing of an influential membership, the Federalist Society is a major player in the right-wing politics impacting American democracy.

In another political-religious collaboration, Missouri Senator John Ashcroft (Assembly of God); North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms (Southern Baptist), chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; and New Hampshire Senator Robert C. Smith (Roman Catholic) have jointly introduced a proposed constitutional amendment (S.J. Res. 49, 105th Congress, 2d Session) to make U.S. citizenship begin in a fertilized egg.

The Fourteenth Amendment reads: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States ... are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside." The senators' proposed amendment states: "The word person applies ... to unborn offspring at every stage of their biological development, including fertilization." Thus, their proposal would define personhood and, hence, citizenship as the ovum at the moment of fertilization.

On the surface, this appears to be another anti-abortion effort. However, it goes beyond that to prohibit any contraceptive that functions after unprotected sex to prevent implantation of the fertilized egg in the uterus. It would therefore prohibit victims of rape from using emergency contraception and force such victims to bear their rapists' children.

If adopted, the amendment would also pose other dilemmas. Would the census have to count early pregnancies even if they later became miscarriages? Would states provide conception certificates instead of birth certificates? Would a miscarriage require a death certificate?

These extreme right-wing senators are so intent on implementing their antiabortion convictions that they haven't foreseen the many implications of their proposals. What is clear is their total disregard for a woman's health or life, because their proposed amendment also specifically states that special legislation would be required to justify saving a woman's life. Thus, under this amendment a woman who prevented an early pregnancy or who had a self-inflicted abortion would be guilty of murdering a person and in death-penalty states could be executed.

The bar has been raised again in the hurdles a woman must jump to secure the right to control her life and health. And the collective efforts of all right-wing extremists to seize political and legislative control in the United States bode ill for democracy and the health of our nation.

John M. Swomley has a Ph.D. in political science and international affairs from the University of Colorado and is professor emeritus of social ethics at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri.