There are lots of Dems on this site that routinely trash Gray Davis, calling him vomit, gutless, incompetent, deserving of being recalled and worse. He was not perfect, but he was ARDENTLY pro-choice and a recent column from the Sacramento Bee reminded me of that.
Gray Davis deserves credit for this and I hope all of you Californians remember the good, not just the bad.
Marjie Lundstrom: Thanks to Gray Davis, women's right to choose is safer here
By Marjie Lundstrom -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PST Saturday, November 6, 2004
You have to hand it to him. Before California Gov. Gray Davis was tossed from office, he saw this day coming - the day when women's reproductive rights were imperiled. The day when an anti-choice president and anti-choice Congress gained more power, casting their eye on the U.S. Supreme Court.
That day is here. But so is Davis' legacy to California women.
Maybe this state didn't pick the winner Tuesday, but it did inoculate itself from what this winner might do.
With President Bush's re-election as the heavyweight champ of "moral values," the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue has spelled out the terms:
"Today, the president owes the pro-life movement a huge debt," Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said in a statement Wednesday.
"Mr. President, you have been given a mandate to end abortion in our nation by the American people who cast their votes for you. Please move forward aggressively to appoint pro-life federal judges, and when the time comes, appoint Supreme Court justices that will strike down the scourge of Roe v. Wade."
Nothing subtle about that. It's payback time.
Snip
Anticipating just this scenario, Davis signed into law a measure in 2002 declaring that California women's decisions about abortion and birth control are private matters.
The Reproductive Privacy Act, by Democratic state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, was touted as of way of keeping abortion legal in California - even if the Supreme Court were to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
"Our current Supreme Court is narrowly divided with only a razor-thin 5-4 majority in support of a woman's right to choose," the governor said at the time. "The next justice ... will hold the continuation of this right in his or her hands. California is not going to sit idly by and wait for that gavel to drop."
Besides the statutory protection, the California Constitution also has been interpreted to protect women's reproductive decisions as a privacy right.
And so California was recently identified as one of 20 states where a woman's right to choose abortion appears "secure," according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.
But that leaves 30 states that the center says "warrant the highest level of concern" if Roe v. Wade were overturned. Most believe that reversing Roe would not in itself make abortion illegal, but it would remove federal constitutional protection for women's right to choose - granting states the power to set abortion policy.
Still, some say, California's shield is not impenetrable.
"We're never completely immune from federal action," says Kathy Kneer, president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. (For the first time in its history, Planned Parenthood Action Fund endorsed a presidential candidate this year, Democrat John Kerry.)
So what if, Kneer asks, the U.S. Supreme Court should reverse Roe by holding that an embryo or fetus is a "person" under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution - outlawing abortion nationwide?
Many legal experts believe that's unlikely, given the court's historical arguments. "I've learned never to say never, but I think that's highly improbable," said Brian Landsberg, a constitutional law professor at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law.
What is probable - count on it - is congressional action, a steady whittling away at women's reproductive needs and choices, from abortion to emergency contraception to sex education.
And if Roe v. Wade were reversed and sent back to the states, Congress could step in and pass federal law making abortion illegal across the land, including California.
"People who think we'll never see illegal abortion in this country are deluded," said Margaret Crosby, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, who specializes in reproductive rights cases.
"But I can also say we're not going to see it in California for a long time."
For that, you can thank Gray Davis, who signed Kuehl's bill a year before his tumultuous recall.
He may not have seen his own political storm clouds gathering.
But he did see ours.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/columns/lundstrom/v-print/story/11332515p-12247205c.html