WASHINGTON - August 25 - Elizabeth Cavendish, Interim President of NARAL Pro-Choice America, the leading national advocate for personal privacy and a woman’s right to choose, attended this morning’s hearing of the Republican Platform Committee, seeking to be heard on the proposed platform plank that calls for amending the U.S. Constitution to eliminate the right to choose entirely. Her request to testify was denied.

In her prepared testimony Cavendish intended to challenge the Republicans to highlight their position in prime time during the convention, instead of hiding behind a handful of high profile pro-choice Republicans. She also called on Republican leaders to bring the proposed Constitutional Amendment to a vote this fall in the U.S. Congress.

In a statement she had hoped to offer to the Platform Committee, Cavendish said:

I’m grateful for the opportunity to address this panel today, and to urge you to take one of two possible courses. NARAL Pro-Choice America’s deepest wish, of course, is that you return your party to its roots as a welcoming home for people who want government out of personal, private decisions such as the decision to have a child. NARAL Pro-Choice America has always been a non-partisan organization, and we have been proud to support many pro-choice Republicans through the years.

Not so very long ago there was a strong pro-choice wing in the Grand Old Party, and we hope that those voices in support of individual liberty will once again become ascendant.

The Party could take a major step in that direction by changing the platform’s language today to affirm support for a woman’s right to choose as a fundamental constitutional right.

If you do not choose that course, however, and decide to keep your existing platform plank calling for a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution, NARAL Pro-Choice America believes you –- and the party as a whole – should do so openly and honestly. If this is the stand the party and the convention wish to make, your leaders should be honest about their choice: Talk about it in prime time during your convention, and urge your Congressional leaders to bring it up for a vote this fall. Let the American people know where each party platform stands for, and give them a chance to see a real debate on the core issue of constitutional protection of reproductive freedom.

The Republican Party has many speakers who could do an outstanding job of presenting your longstanding platform plank to the American people, starting with President Bush. He should begin by telling Americans about his record on choice during the past four years, including his effort to stack the federal courts with anti-choice judges such as the lawyer who chaired the platform committee that first adopted this plank in 1976.

President Bush should forthrightly defend the way in which his anti-choice premise is preventing valuable stem cell research – research that could unlock a cure for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and cancer. And he should discuss his intentions to appoint the next Supreme Court justice in the mold of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. It’s time for the president and his party to come clean with the American people and explain where he and his party stand.

Other potential speakers to present this part of your platform are Republican Senate candidates – like Tom Coburn in Oklahoma, who advocates the death penalty for doctors; and his colleagues in Arkansas and Illinois, Jim Holt and Alan Keyes, who have likened abortion to terrorism and slavery. The American people should understand the implications of the core belief expressed in this platform.

Or perhaps Party stalwarts such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell should be given the opportunity to explain their contention that the 9/11 attacks on America were God’s punishment for allowing women the right to control their own lives and bodies.

I urge you – if you must continue to reaffirm the plank calling for a Human Life Amendment – to have the courage to let the American people know about it. The American people deserve to know the party’s prohibitionist policy on abortion and amending the constitution to criminalize it. Instead, this convention’s lineup of speakers features a dwindling handful of pro-choice Republicans. It’s an unfortunate charade, a masquerade ball, and an extreme makeover.

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