The 4th of July weekend found the National Organization for Women commemorating gains in women`s rights-and decrying their erosion-at the group`s annual convention here.
”(On July 4th) we celebrated the revolution we went through to win these rights,” said Patricia Ireland, NOW`s executive vice president. ”NOW is launching a peaceful but revolutionary campaign to retain these rights. We will not go backwards. We are going forward.”
NOW is hoping to focus attention on civil rights and women`s rights during the 1992 election year. The group is organizing a march on Washington in support of reproductive rights next spring, and is increasing efforts to raise money and visibility. Its Commission for Responsive Democracy, headed by Eleanor Smeal, plans to devise political strategies to press for change-including the formation of a new political party.
It also will campaign to oppose the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court and the threat to legalized abortion, as well as plans to celebrate NOW`s 25th anniversary with an international feminist conference in Washington next January.
The conference also gave Ireland a chance to show her stuff. Ireland will assume the presidency of the 250,000-member women`s rights organization in December when Molly Yard, the current president, retires.
The Miami lawyer who once worked as a flight attendant addresses an audience in a less fiery manner than her predecessors, but with a straight-forwardness and logic that is equally commanding. Ireland moved into the spotlight a few months early as a stand-in for Yard, who is recovering from a stroke.
If this conference was a fair indication, Ireland, 45, will be an articulate and active leader. She kicked off the three-day conference by announcing an all-out effort to defeat the Thomas nomination, which she declared to be ”an insult to the life and legacy of (retiring Justice)
Thurgood Marshall.” Ireland described Thomas as ”out of step with the Bill of Rights and out of step with the American public.”
During the conference, she led a march of more than 5,000 supporters through the streets of New York, where she spoke out against the growing threats to legalized abortion, such as the recent Rust vs. Sullivan Supreme Court decision, which prevents doctors at federally funded clinics from giving patients information about abortion.
”We are near the end for legal abortions unless women are heard . . . unless people are heard,” Ireland told listeners at the rally. ”We must summon the will to stop this adminstration now,” she said, leading the group in a chant of defiance, ”We won`t go back!”
Born in Oak Park and married to painter James Humble, Ireland has been active in international women`s rights and human rights issues since the mid-` 70s.
A graduate of the University of Miami Law School (1975), Ireland was legal counsel to Dade County and Florida NOW, and was a partner in a Miami law firm , where she handled employment-discrimination and affirmative-action cases before assuming a national post at NOW.
Her call for action at this year`s conference is in keeping with her past work for the group, which has included organizing attorneys to fight the nominations of Antonin Scalia, Robert Bork and Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court, developing campaigns to deal with anti-abortion extremists at women`s health clinics and in the courts.
Given the current political climate, Ireland says she felt it was time to ”up the ante.” Although admitting that progress has been made in the area of women`s rights in the past 25 years, she sees a danger of ”being rolled back. I don`t think in the 25 years of NOW`s history that constitutional rights, the Bill of Rights and individual rights across the board have been in greater danger.”
Ireland sees the Rust vs. Sullivan decision as a willingness to
”sacrifice the First Amendment for the political expendiency of going after abortion. They are willing to use the abortion issue as an emotional issue, one they can cast in moral terms, as an opening wedge to go after a lot of our democratic rights.”
For those reasons, she announced that NOW was officially calling for civil disobedience. Suggested actions include ”shadowing” Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan and organizing sit-ins in his office to protest the department`s policy regarding RU-486, the controversial French
”abortion pill” that is also considered a potential treatment for breast cancer, as well as the department`s lack of action in other areas relating to women`s health issues.
Chicago NOW executive director Sue Purrington said she was pleased with the number of young women who attended the conference, but said she noticed more of a somber mood because of what is happening with reproductive rights and the Thomas nomination.
She said that if she had one criticism of the conference, it was that ”a lot of time was spent on Thomas and his confirmation rather than on what we need to do to restore family-planning funding.”
She said this year`s conference ”was a powerful place to be because many people get depressed and turn inward at these times” while feminists shout and get angry.
(Next year`s national conference will be held June 26-28 in Chicago.)
Health issues were also a focal point of this year`s meeting-from the increase in cervical and ovarian cancers to the lack of research in areas relating to women`s illnesses.
A new group, the Breast Cancer Coalition, made up of 42 organizations nationwide, will work to promote research, screening and treatment.
(For more information, contact Y ME, the national organization for Breast Cancer Information and Support, 708-799-8338. )
In a lighter vein, Los Angeles standup comic Judy Carter led a popular session on how to inject humor into serious issues-from dysfunctional families to macho men and flashers-as a way of creating power.
”Making a joke disarms your opponent,” says Carter. ”I`m not talking about wimping out, but rather disarming the enemy and not having to carry your anger around with you all day long.”
Asked how she deals with hecklers, Carter replied, ”I just think, `What would Thelma and Louise do?`
