PBS' "TO THE CONTRARY" HOST: BONNIE ERBE GUESTS: RUTH CONNIFF KAREN CZARNECKI PATRICIA SOSA DANA WHITE SUNDAY, APRIL 4, 2004 PLEASE CREDIT ANY QUOTES OR EXCERPTS FROM THIS PBS PROGRAM TO "PBS' TO THE CONTRARY." TRANSCRIPT BY: FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE 1919 M STREET NORTHWEST WASHINGTON, DC 20036 FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE IS A PRIVATE FIRM AND IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. COPYRIGHT 2004 BY FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE, INC., WASHINGTON, DC, 20036, USA. NO PORTION OF THIS TRANSCRIPT MAY BE COPIED, SOLD, OR RETRANSMITTED WITHOUT THE WRITTEN AUTHORITY OF FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE, INC. TO RECEIVE STATE, WHITE HOUSE, DEFENSE, BACKGROUND AND OTHER BRIEFINGS AND SPEECHES BY WIRE SOON AFTER THEY END, PLEASE CALL CORTES RANDELL AT 202-347-1400. COPYRIGHT IS NOT CLAIMED AS TO ANY PART OF THE ORIGINAL WORK PREPARED BY A UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT OFFICER OR EMPLOYEE AS A PART OF THAT PERSON'S OFFICIAL DUTIES. ------------------------- .STX MS. ERBE: South Beach, Atkins, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, diet-schmiet, does any diet really help women take and keep off unwanted pounds in our size- conscious society? MS. CONNIFF: Small changes and healthy habits are the only thing that can make long-term change. MS. CZARNECKI: No, it's only good, old-fashioned exercise that are going to keep those pounds off. MS. SOSA: Obesity is quickly becoming one of the leading causes of preventable death in America. Dieting is not only a business, it's an important health issue. MS. WHITE: Sometimes, but it's not the diet, it's the discipline. (Musical break.) MS. ERBE: Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbe. Welcome to To The Contrary, a discussion of news and social trends from a variety of women's perspectives. This week, President Bush signs a new law that he says protects unborn victims of crime, and liberal women's groups say limits reproductive rights. Then, the left/right media debate. The debut of a new liberal talk radio network is billed as the antidote to Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio and cable news. Behind the headlines, women's obsessions with fad diets. Some helpful hints if you're cutting carbs but seeing no results. Up first, reproductive rights. President Bush signed into law the Unborn Victims of Violence Act this week, fueling the ongoing debate over reproductive rights in the courts, in Congress, and in American society. Under the new law, when a pregnant woman is assaulted, her fetus or unborn child is a separate victim of the same crime. The new law is unlikely to produce many new prosecutions, though, it only applies to federal crimes. For example, during attacks on federal land, or during terrorist strikes. But analysts say the president's signature bears greater meaning. Opponents view it as further limitations on reproductive rights, which have been slowly eroding in the three decades since the landmark Roe v. Wade case legalized abortion on a national scale. Some medical ethicists believe technology is changing the way society and women view pregnancy and abortion rights. Sonograms, for example, were not widely available when Roe became law, nor was in utero surgery. Ruth Conniff, since Roe became law 30-something years ago, there have been more and more limits placed on reproductive rights, and society seems to be tolerating them quite well. Has the American public become much more conservative on the abortion issue than it was when Roe became law? MS. CONNIFF: I don't think so. And I don't think actually that we're tolerating all this stuff so well. I think this is like God, guns and gays. I think that this is a strategy to divide people, to create a really controversial topic to take advantage of a big tabloid news story, which was the Laci Peterson case, and that it will have very little actual effect. I mean, after all, this law will only apply for federal crimes. So, if Laci Peterson had been the victim of a terrorist attack, then we would be talking about something here. But that's not what really happens. What really happens is, these women who are pregnant and who end up dying, often, are the victims of domestic violence. And if we want to do something about that, then we don't need this law, we could have the Feinstein alternative, which was to say the exact same thing, it's a crime to harm a fetus, it's an enhancer, it's a penalty enhancer, it's a worse crime than harming a woman who is not pregnant, but we don't make the fetus a separate person who is a victim separately from the mother. MS. CZARNECKI: I think there has been a significant change over the past 10 years because of medical technology, and I think it's true, the fact that if you want a picture of your baby now to send to folks, I mean, whether you like it or not, we've come so far with technology -- MS. ERBE: You're talking about, for example, where you go into a shopping mall and get a sonogram of your baby before it's born and send it out as a Christmas card or something? MS. CZARNECKI: Absolutely. And people are doing it. I think it's a bit odd myself, but people are doing it. And the more you can see as to what's happening -- I mean, when you couldn't see anything before, you know, out of sight, out of mind, people didn't want to discuss it. But now that you can have surgeries on children who have encephalitis, water on the brain. MS. ERBE: You should say in utero. MS. CZARNECKI: In utero, you can correct so many different medical conditions right now so that your baby is not born and has severe disabilities, and I think that's really changing a lot of debate. But what we're really seeing now is, every four years, the people are trying to galvanize their base, whether it's the left, or whether it's the right. And that's why it's becoming more prevalent. I don't think it would be as much an issue if we didn't have the horrific situation with Laci Peterson. I agree with you on that. I mean, seeing a couple of these high profile cases that are really bringing the issue to the forefront. MS. SOSA: Let me talk about the whole technological issue, because it's true, but at the same time that doesn't negate the social and economic reasons of why so many women need to terminate their pregnancy. So, these women particularly increasingly are working class women, also socioeconomic background, many immigrant women. For examples, Latinas have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy, so logically you're probably going to see in terms of pregnancy termination a large percentage of these girls maybe needing those services. MS. ERBE: How is that changing over the last 10 or 20 years? MS. SOSA: Who is advocating? Who are the people advocating? And the reality is that the women that created this situation that gave women the rights now don't need it because they have reproductive issues taken care of, and they don't need the termination services. So the people that are left behind that are caught in the middle of this debate are people that have less political power and influence to really shape the debate to their benefit. MS. WHITE: I'm going to say, but right now there are 29 states that have this law already in some form of the pregnancy that also has stricter penalties for violence towards an unborn child. But the problem is also, like Karen said, both sides don't really address the issue of, there's a child, we really are putting a mother and a child at odds with each other. It's a unit. You can't have -- the right doesn't talk enough about a woman, and about the fact that this is going to impact her life for the rest of her life, and the left doesn't talk enough about you are seeing now color pictures of sonograms, not even the grainy picture, you see twins kissing. I mean, that's changing the debate, and I think both sides have to address the fact that the mother and the child are not enemies of each other, that they are a unit, and we have to evolve. MS. ERBE: You guys on the left, how should the left address that? Because what the left is saying now is that you're pitting mother against child with, for example, the ridiculous situation in Utah where they're -- I mean ridiculous on both ends, that this mother had several children already that she was apparently abusing in public, and ridiculous in terms of prosecuting her for murder for not having a Cesarean section which a lot of people see as a huge invasion in her private -- in other words, they are a unit, and yet they're being treated as if they're not. So, what's the left's answer to that? MS. CONNIFF: The left is on the defensive. I mean, that's the whole problem with a proposal like this, is that it's not -- I don't think it's an honesty policy discussion. I don't think they're really saying, what are we going to do about these really lousy situations where murder is the leading cause of death, as you have pointed out, for pregnant women.