textfiles-politics/politicalTextFiles/women.txt

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    CLINTON/GORE ON ISSUES OF CONCERN TO WOMEN



Never before have American women had so many
options or been asked to make such difficult
choices.  It's time not only to make women full
partners in government, but also to make government
work for American women.

The Bush Administration says it is committed to
women, but  it has repeatedly acted against their
interests.  A Clinton/Gore Administration will be
different.  Instead of fighting to deprive women of
their legal right to choose, we will support the
Freedom of Choice Act -- not because we are
"pro-abortion," but because we think certain
choices are too personal for politics.

Instead of making life-saving research a political
issue, we will let it serve American women by
lifting the ban on fetal tissue research and
directing adequate resources to women's health
issues. And instead of vetoing legislation to give
Americans the right to take leave from work to care
for newborn children and sick relatives -- a right
enjoyed in very other major industrialized nation
-- we will sign into law the Family and Medical
Leave Act.

The Bush Administration has failed to do right by
American women.  We will do better.

Protect a woman's right to choose

 Sign into law the Freedom of Choice Act.  Bill
Clinton and Al Gore recognize that personal privacy
is a fundamental liberty guaranteed and protected
by the United States Constitution; and that our
government thus has no right to interfere with the
difficult and intensely personal decisions women
must sometimes make regarding abortion.   Signing
the Freedom of Choice Act will ensure that a
woman's right to choose is not jeopardized by a
Supreme Court reversal or limitation of Roe v.
Wade.

*  Urge Congress to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which
   prohibits federally funded abortions even for
   rape and incest victims.

*  Repeal President Bush's "gag" rule, which
   prohibits medical personnel in federally funded
   clinics from advising women on pregnancy options
   including abortion.

*  Oppose any federal attempt to limit access to
   abortion through mandatory waiting periods or
   parental or spousal consent requirements; support
   state efforts to require some form of adult
   counseling or consultation for underage girls who
   choose to have an abortion  as long as workable
   and effective judicial bypass provisions are
   attached to such laws.

*  Initiate measures to protect women and
   care-givers from intimidation, harassment and
   threats posed by radical demonstrators who
   illegally block health clinics.

*  Reduce the need for abortion by urging Congress
   to re-authorize the Title X Family Planning
   Program; by prioritizing research and development
   of safe, effective contraception at the National
   Institutes of Health; by providing improved
   family planning services and education programs;
   and by ensuring the availability of
   contraceptives to low-income women.

Protect women's rights in the workplace

*  Support efforts to ensure fair wages for all
   workers, regardless of gender; and to ban
   gender-based discrimination in federal hiring,
   promotion and contracts.

*  Hire and appoint more women at all levels of
   government so that a Clinton/Gore Administration
   better reflects this country's population.

*  Press for and enforce tough sexual harassment
   guidelines in all government agencies.

Support pro-family and pro-children policies

*  Grant additional tax relief to families with
   children.

*  Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit to guarantee
   a "working wage" so that no American who works
   full-time is forced to live in poverty.

*  Sign into law the Family and Medical Leave Act,
   which George Bush vetoed in 1990, so that no
   worker is forced to choose between maintaining
   his or her job and caring for a newborn child or
   sick family member.

*  Create a child care network as complete as the
   public school network, tailored to the needs of
   working families; give parents choices between
   competing public and private institutions.

*  Establish more rigorous standards for licensing
   child care facilities and implement improved
   methods for enforcing them.

*  Crack down on deadbeat parents by reporting them
   to credit agencies, so they can't borrow money
   for themselves when they're not taking care of
   their children.  Use the Internal Revenue Service
   to collect child support, start a national
   deadbeat databank, and make it a felony to cross
   state lines to avoid paying support.

Ensure affordable, quality health care for all
Americans

*  Provide health coverage for all Americans with a
   core benefits package that includes ambulatory
   physician care, in-patient hospital care,
   prescription drugs, basic mental health services,
   and important preventive programs like pre-natal
   care and annual mammograms.

*  Sign into law the Women's Health Research Act,
   the Reproductive Health Equity Act and similar
   legislative measures designed to address current
   deficiencies in the treatment of women's health
   problems.

*  Use whatever means are available to find cures
   for diseases like ovarian cancer, breast cancer
   and osteoporosis including lifting the fetal
   tissue research ban.

*  Develop a comprehensive maternal and child health
   network to reduce both the infant mortality rate
   and the number of low birth-weight babies.

*  Support testing of RU-486.  We will instruct the
   FDA to treat RU 486 like any other drug that
   requires testing, not like a political football.

Crack down on violence against women

*  Sign the Violence Against Women Act, which would
   provide tougher enforcement and stiffer penalties
   to deter domestic violence.

Reproductive rights

*  Governor Clinton never wavered in his support of
   a woman's legal right to choose as set out in the
   Supreme Courts landmark Roe v. Wade opinion;
   recently signed an amicus brief in Planned
   Parenthood v. Casey which argued that the Court
   should respect stare decisis and uphold the
   fundamental right to choose as recognized in Roe
   v. Wade.

*  Signed a parental notification law which contains
   an effective judicial bypass provision so that
   minors who are deemed sufficiently mature to
   exercise their right to choose are not
   arbitrarily deprived of it; the original bill
   would have required parental consent.


*  Senator Gore has consistently voted to protect a
   woman's right to choose and is a cosponsor of the
   Freedom of Choice Act.

Women in the workplace

*  Governor Clinton required every state agency to
   develop and implement a sexual harassment policy.

*  Hired and appointed more women to state courts,
   boards and commissions than all previous Arkansas
   governors combined; ranked sixth among the
   nations governors by the National Womens
   Political Caucus in the percentage of women
   appointed to cabinet-level positions.

*  Hired women to manage his gubernatorial
   campaigns; his longest-tenured chief-of-staff was
   a woman.

*  Advocated passage of the Equal Rights Amendment
   from the beginning; urged Congress to pass a
   strong Civil Rights bill to prohibit job
   discrimination in 1991, and appointed an Arkansas
   task force to develop complementary state
   legislation.

*  Bill Clinton has consistently supported
   legislation to overturn Supreme Court decisions
   which limit the rights of women, cosponsoring the
   Equal Remedies Act to provide women greater
   opportunity to gain compensation for employment
   discrimination.

*  Senator Gore  has cosponsored legislation that
   overturned Supreme Court decisions which limited
   the rights of minorities and women.  Laws he
   cosponsored include the Fair Housing Amendments
   Act, the Civil Rights Restoration Act, and the
   Civil Rights Acts of 1990 and 1991.

*  Cosponsored the Equal Remedies Act, which will
   remove limitations on dollar amounts of
   compensatory and punitive damage awards in cases
   of intentional employment discrimination against
   women.

Families and children

*  Bill Clinton was a driving force in writing the
   Family Support Act of 1988, representing the
   nation's governors in a major revision of the Aid
   to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)
   program and Title IV of the Social Security Act.
   The Family Support Act emphasizes work, child
   support and family benefits, and encourages and
   assists needy children and parents in obtaining
   the education, training and employment necessary
   to avoid long-term welfare dependence.

*  Made Arkansas the first state in the country to
   implement a statewide child care voucher system;
   named by the National Women's Political Caucus
   one of 10 "Good Guys" in 1988, recognizing
   leadership in the campaign for safe, quality
   child care.

*  Raised licensing standards for child-care
   centers, hired more state inspectors to enforce
   those standards, and established a special fund
   to train child care workers.

*  Led Arkansas in initiating, through state and
   federal funds, comprehensive health clinics in
   schools, including reproductive health
   information and services with a local option to
   distribute contraceptives.

*  Led efforts to pass a law mandating that deadbeat
   parents with overdue child support payments be
   reported to consumer credit agencies; established
   a rebuttable presumption of paternity if the
   father's name and social security number are
   recorded on birth certificates.

*  The Arkansas Child Support Enforcement Unit has
   received national recognition for identifying
   deadbeat parents and for aggressive enforcement
   of child support payments.

*  Al Gore cosponsored the Family and Medical Leave
   Act which President Bush vetoed.

*  Supported the Child Enforcement Act.

Health care

*  As a leader of the Southern ad National Governors
   Associations, Bill Clinton helped secure
   congressional passage of the Pregnant Women and
   Infants Act, easing Medicaid eligibility
   requirements for pregnant women.  This program
   has expanded critical pre- and post-natal care
   services for thousands of women and children in
   Arkansas and across the nation.

*  Established the "Good Beginnings" program in
   1987, which took advantage of new federal
   regulations to provide basic health services to
   more low-income women and their young children;
   Arkansas was the first state to launch such a
   program.

*  Led Arkansas nationally acclaimed efforts to
   combat unwanted teen pregnancies through
   school-based clinics, outreach services and
   consistent and aggressive public advocacy.

*  Enacted a 1989 law requiring the Department of
   Health to establish and administer quality
   standards for x-ray facilities conducting
   mammography.

*  Al Gore supported legislation to create an Office
   of Research on Women's Health to ensure that
   research on women's health is a priority in the
   National Institutes of Health.

*  Supported legislation to lift the ban on fetal
   tissue research.

Violence

*  Governor Clinton created a Children's Trust Fund,
   financed by a $5.00 fee on marriage licenses,
   which finances child abuse and neglect prevention
   projects through grants.

*  Signed legislation under which Arkansas pays for
   examinations of sexual assault victims and
   publishes treatment guidelines that hospitals are
   required to follow for those victims.

*  Senator Gore cosponsored the Violence Against
   Women Act, which helps make streets, campuses,
   and homes safe for women.  The Act creates the
   first federal laws to help protect women from
   spousal abuse. It also defines gender-motivated
   crimes as bias or hate crimes that  violate civil
   rights.

*  Cosponsored the Campus Crime Statistics Act to
   increase safety on campuses by compiling and
   disseminating crime statistics on campuses.

*  Supported legislation to expand funding for
   family violence prevention.