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CNN Live Sunday

Interview With Kim Gandy, Ken Connor

Aired January 19, 2003 - 18:26   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's tackle a difficult subject today. President Bush has declared today Sanctity of Human Life Day. Three days before the 30th anniversary of legalized abortion right here in America. Thousands are expected in Washington Wednesday to demonstrate for or against the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
And a new CNN/"TIME" magazine poll shows 39 percent of Americans support abortion on demand; 42 percent want some limits, and 15 percent want abortion outlawed altogether.

Well, from Washington, we're joined by Kim Gandy of the National Organization for Women and Ken Connor of the Family Research Council. Welcome to both of you this evening.

KEN CONNOR, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: Thank you.

KIM GANDY, NOW: Thank you.

LIN: What do you make of -- I'm just wondering, Kim, what do you make of what Planned Parenthood has basically said today, that the timing of this announcement by President Bush clearly indicates that the president intends to overturn Roe v. Wade during his administration?

GANDY: There's no question in my mind that that is exactly his intention. He's made it very clear that he intends to pay back the most extreme wing of his party for its support of him. And this is the way he intends to pay them back before the election. He's very clearly got Roe v. Wade in his sights, and he intends to overturn it probably with the next Supreme Court appointment.

LIN: All right. And it's possible that President Bush could be responsible for two, maybe even as many as three Supreme Court appointments.

GANDY: That's exactly right.

LIN: Ken, is this the opportunity that you have been waiting for? Are you hopeful that Roe v. Wade will, in fact, be overturned soon?

CONNOR: Well, I'm certainly hopeful. The price in America has been extraordinarily high of Roe v. Wade. We've lost over 40 million children at the hands of abortionists in the aftermath of the Roe v. Wade decision. One in every three children conceived in this country perishes at the hands of abortionists. And not only are we engaged in these terrible surgical procedures against unborn children, we're using weapons of chemical warfare, with the morning after pill, RU486, this grizzly, ghoulish procedure that has come to be known as partial birth abortion. And I think Americans are increasingly becoming uncomfortable with the reality that abortion kills children and injures women.

LIN: Ken, I really have to ask you about some latest polling data that I find pretty interesting, kind of contradicting too. For example, when asked if people -- those surveyed, do you personally believe if abortion is wrong, now 59 percent say yes, but when asked do you favor or oppose abortion in the first three months, 55 percent, more than half, still support Roe v. Wade, still support a woman's right to choose. How does the Bush administration go up against numbers like that today?

CONNOR: Well, when you drill down those numbers, you find that even among pro-choice people that more than 70 percent favor some form of restriction on abortion. A parental notice for minor children who secure abortion, notification of the husband of a wife who intends to get an abortion, a 24-hour waiting period. I think it's fair to say that these labels, pro-choice, pro-life are sometimes deceiving, and that you have to really drill down below the labels to find out where Americans really are.

And with the advent of technology, such as the G.E. ultrasound pictures, I think it's unmistakable that unborn children are members of the human family and Americans are increasingly uncomfortable with an unrestricted right to choose to kill an innocent child, which is what abortion really is.

LIN: I have to say, I had one of those G.E. ultra sounds, I'm seven months pregnant now, and my picture was extremely fuzzy. She looked very alien to me at that point.

Kim, I want to ask you, though, how seriously do you take President Bush's alternatives? I mean, he is saying that his administration is more than willing to give additional help to expectant mothers, to also support other alternatives, like adoption, to educate kids in school about abstinence. Many of these...

GANDY: But the fact is that they're not doing those things. You know he calls this National Sanctity of Human Life Day, yet he's sentenced approximately 80,000 women around the world to death with the global gag rule.

Tens of thousands of children under the age of five will die because he cut $34 million in U.N. family planning funds that provided sterile birthing kits. His team at the U.N. tried to stop the use of condoms for AIDS prevention. He seems to only be worried about (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and blastocysts and embryos. He doesn't seem to care about the children and the women who bear those children.

The numbers that you cited earlier make it very clear that even women and men who say I might not choose abortion myself if that were a decision I had to face but I am not in another woman's shoes or in her family's shoes, and I would not begin to make that decision for her or her family and that's what the law says now and it's got to stay that way for women's lives.

LIN: All right, thank you very much Kim Gandy, National Organization for Women and Ken Connor, Family Research Council.

CONNOR: Thank you.

LIN: I wish we did have more time. It is a controversial subject but one we'll explore again. Thank you very much.

GANDY: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired January 19, 2003 - 18:26   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's tackle a difficult subject today. President Bush has declared today Sanctity of Human Life Day. Three days before the 30th anniversary of legalized abortion right here in America. Thousands are expected in Washington Wednesday to demonstrate for or against the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
And a new CNN/"TIME" magazine poll shows 39 percent of Americans support abortion on demand; 42 percent want some limits, and 15 percent want abortion outlawed altogether.

Well, from Washington, we're joined by Kim Gandy of the National Organization for Women and Ken Connor of the Family Research Council. Welcome to both of you this evening.

KEN CONNOR, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: Thank you.

KIM GANDY, NOW: Thank you.

LIN: What do you make of -- I'm just wondering, Kim, what do you make of what Planned Parenthood has basically said today, that the timing of this announcement by President Bush clearly indicates that the president intends to overturn Roe v. Wade during his administration?

GANDY: There's no question in my mind that that is exactly his intention. He's made it very clear that he intends to pay back the most extreme wing of his party for its support of him. And this is the way he intends to pay them back before the election. He's very clearly got Roe v. Wade in his sights, and he intends to overturn it probably with the next Supreme Court appointment.

LIN: All right. And it's possible that President Bush could be responsible for two, maybe even as many as three Supreme Court appointments.

GANDY: That's exactly right.

LIN: Ken, is this the opportunity that you have been waiting for? Are you hopeful that Roe v. Wade will, in fact, be overturned soon?

CONNOR: Well, I'm certainly hopeful. The price in America has been extraordinarily high of Roe v. Wade. We've lost over 40 million children at the hands of abortionists in the aftermath of the Roe v. Wade decision. One in every three children conceived in this country perishes at the hands of abortionists. And not only are we engaged in these terrible surgical procedures against unborn children, we're using weapons of chemical warfare, with the morning after pill, RU486, this grizzly, ghoulish procedure that has come to be known as partial birth abortion. And I think Americans are increasingly becoming uncomfortable with the reality that abortion kills children and injures women.

LIN: Ken, I really have to ask you about some latest polling data that I find pretty interesting, kind of contradicting too. For example, when asked if people -- those surveyed, do you personally believe if abortion is wrong, now 59 percent say yes, but when asked do you favor or oppose abortion in the first three months, 55 percent, more than half, still support Roe v. Wade, still support a woman's right to choose. How does the Bush administration go up against numbers like that today?

CONNOR: Well, when you drill down those numbers, you find that even among pro-choice people that more than 70 percent favor some form of restriction on abortion. A parental notice for minor children who secure abortion, notification of the husband of a wife who intends to get an abortion, a 24-hour waiting period. I think it's fair to say that these labels, pro-choice, pro-life are sometimes deceiving, and that you have to really drill down below the labels to find out where Americans really are.

And with the advent of technology, such as the G.E. ultrasound pictures, I think it's unmistakable that unborn children are members of the human family and Americans are increasingly uncomfortable with an unrestricted right to choose to kill an innocent child, which is what abortion really is.

LIN: I have to say, I had one of those G.E. ultra sounds, I'm seven months pregnant now, and my picture was extremely fuzzy. She looked very alien to me at that point.

Kim, I want to ask you, though, how seriously do you take President Bush's alternatives? I mean, he is saying that his administration is more than willing to give additional help to expectant mothers, to also support other alternatives, like adoption, to educate kids in school about abstinence. Many of these...

GANDY: But the fact is that they're not doing those things. You know he calls this National Sanctity of Human Life Day, yet he's sentenced approximately 80,000 women around the world to death with the global gag rule.

Tens of thousands of children under the age of five will die because he cut $34 million in U.N. family planning funds that provided sterile birthing kits. His team at the U.N. tried to stop the use of condoms for AIDS prevention. He seems to only be worried about (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and blastocysts and embryos. He doesn't seem to care about the children and the women who bear those children.

The numbers that you cited earlier make it very clear that even women and men who say I might not choose abortion myself if that were a decision I had to face but I am not in another woman's shoes or in her family's shoes, and I would not begin to make that decision for her or her family and that's what the law says now and it's got to stay that way for women's lives.

LIN: All right, thank you very much Kim Gandy, National Organization for Women and Ken Connor, Family Research Council.

CONNOR: Thank you.

LIN: I wish we did have more time. It is a controversial subject but one we'll explore again. Thank you very much.

GANDY: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com