Since taking office in January 2001, George W. Bush has led a steady and unrelenting attack on freedom of choice and the right to privacy, using all the powers of his presidency. Through legislation, executive actions, and appointments, Bush has left no stone unturned in his war on freedom of choice. If left unchecked, the consequences for privacy rights – and even access to contraception – will be felt for generations to come. Here's a look at Bush's record, by the numbers.

SIGNING LEGISLATION

• President Bush is the FIRST president since Roe v. Wade to sign legislation outlawing abortion, and the FIRST in the nation's history to criminalize medical procedures.


• President Bush signed the FIRST federal law giving unprecedented legal status to an embryo or fetus, a blatant attempt to undermine the basic tenets of Roe v. Wade.

• President Bush has issued 29 "Statements of Administration Policy" urging Congress to insert government into private medical decisions and undermine family-planning services.


• Congress has responded by voting 36 times on choice-related issues since President Bush took office. Pro-choice Americans have lost all but EIGHT of those votes.

• President Bush has taken 13 official executive actions to undermine reproductive rights, including re-imposing the global "gag" rule on his first working day in office and cutting off funds for almost all stem-cell research.

• Nearly all 51 of President Bush's nominees to the federal appeals courts pose a fundamental threat to privacy rights, with 15 of these nominees having extreme or activist anti-choice records.
  


• Unsatisfied with a confirmation rate of more than 95 percent for his judges, President Bush has TWICE used recess appointments to place staunchly anti-choice judicial nominees on the federal appellate bench, sidestepping the Senate's constitutional role in the nominations process.

• President Bush nominated TWO ardent anti-choicers to head the cabinet agencies with the greatest influence over freedom of choice: John Ashcroft as Attorney General and Tommy Thompson as Secretary of Health and Human Services.


• President Bush has named no fewer than 13 anti-choice activists to serve in prominent administration posts that oversee reproductive health, including people like former Rep. Tom Coburn and Dr. W. David Hager.

• Ignoring an overwhelming 23-4 vote of its own expert advisory panelists, plus recommendations from major medical and public-health groups, the Bush FDA caved to political pressure from the far right and denied women the opportunity to purchase emergency contraception over the counter.


• The Bush administration has TWICE censored accurate medical information on government websites at the behest of anti-choice activists.


• The Bush administration's Department of Justice, under John Ashcroft, defended the Federal Abortion Ban, which was struck down by THREE federal courts.


• After coordinating the government’s defense of the Federal Abortion Ban, ONE former Bush Justice Department official called on the Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade outright.


• Each of President Bush's FOUR annual budgets has been anti-choice, canceling family-planning programs both at home and abroad, promoting unproven abstinence-only curricula, and extending discriminatory abortion restrictions.


• President Bush has FOUR times sent a speech of support to the annual "March for Life."


• Vice-President Cheney ONCE spoke at an annual fundraising dinner for the National Right to Life Committee’s leadership and declared that "America still has some distance to travel" to achieve the administration's goal of rolling back a woman’s right to choose.


• The Bush administration abruptly ended a 30-year tradition of federal funding for a prominent public-health conference hosted by the non-partisan Global Health Council. Federal support was rescinded because organizations with pro-choice positions were among the conference’s diverse participants.


• On at least THREE occasions, President Bush's delegations to United Nations conferences have sought radical anti-choice changes to international agreements that would, if adopted, promote censorship and medical misinformation, and endanger the public health. Among the policies advocated, in the name of the American people, is the proposal that "life begins at conception."


• As if all this weren't enough, President Bush even banished ONE venerable organization (the American Bar Association) from its traditional role in the judicial nominations process, and closed down ONE important Administration office (The White House Office for Women's Initiatives and Outreach) whose duty it was to ensure that issues of concern to women had a voice within White House walls.