Henry Hyde's Hypocrisies: Rest Not in Peace

I was in Arizona awaiting my grandson Eli's birth in March, 1997, when I received a panicked call from my Washington, D. C. staff. "We've been summoned to appear before the joint House of Representatives and Senate Judiciary Committees to testify about the so-called Partial Birth Abortion Act. It's going to be a witch hunt," they told me. "You have to come back and prepare. It's a really big deal--you'll be under oath and intense media scrutiny."

This would be my first face-to-face encounter with Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), the silver-maned, vociferously anti-choice, then-chair of the House Judiciary Committee, who died on November 29. It'd be my first congressional testimony since I had become national president of Planned Parenthood the previous year, when President Clinton vetoed in play again.

The Federal Abortion Ban, as I call it because it is, had engendered as much controversy within the pro-choice movement as within the Congress and public. In my view, that internal angst came about because the abortion ban wasn't immediately outed for the frontal assault on Roe v Wade it has since proven itself to be. (A full rendition of this brilliantly deceptive legislation's history is in my book, The War on Choice.)

Green though I was to the federal political theater, I knew we had to reset the agenda and change the terms of the debate. And one thing I'd learned from the frontlines during 22 years at the helm of Planned Parenthood affiliates in bright red West Texas and Arizona was that the hotter the flames of controversy, the more they got people's attention and illuminated what we had to say.

I grumpily boarded the plane to Washington, hoping the baby would await my return. Perusing Hyde's voting record, I found something striking: in all his years of strident opposition to abortion, the man had never voted to support family planning programs that would lessen the need for abortion. What kind of hypocrisy was that? Not only was he the author of the infamous Hyde Amendment that since 1977 had robbed women relying on Medicaid for health care of coverage for abortion, but he had done absolutely nothing to help them prevent unintended pregnancy in the first place.

In the imposing hearing room, Committee members sat behind tables on a high, well-lighted platform looking down upon the testifiers below in what felt like a pit. Behind us sat an audience of advocates from both sides. News cameras lined the back of the room.

The prepared testimony of the four pro-choice organization leaders called to testify had been carefully vetted by our staffs, legal advisors, and media consultants. Tension was thick.

But one thing you can depend on is that a zealot will eventually hoist himself on the petard of his own extremism. Hyde didn't even attempt to cloak himself in the charade of the abortion ban bill's supposed moderation. Instead, he roared his first question: "Ms. Feldt, does it trouble you that there are so many abortions?"

"Mr. Hyde, if it troubles you," I went off script to reply, "why have you never once voted for family planning services?"

The chamber erupted in applause; the hearing chairman cautioned them to quiet down or be ejected. The previously timid committee Democrats perked up. The lion had been bearded in his lair. Hyde's response can only be described as "blub, blub", while he attempted to deflect the palpable shift in energy. Then he began to attack me in earnest, and Sen. Ted Kennedy leapt to my defense and cut him off.

The other testifiers similarly took energy from this confrontation so that in the end, the hearing was not the rout anti-choice forces had hoped for and pro-choice forces had feared. But it was a line of demarcation between a pro-choice strategy of defense and one where we would put forward a positive agenda.

Afterward, I stepped to the platform to shake hands with the Congress members. When I got to Mr. Hyde, he leaned over the table and looked searingly into my eyes. I expected he would either compliment me for taking him on or lecture me on the error of my ways.

Instead, he leered, "Your organization hires the best-looking women."

I wish I could say I had a clever retort, but I burst out laughing at this typical male technique for diminishing a woman.

I made it back for Eli's joyfully awaited birth. But America has yet to ensure every woman can enjoy the blessings of motherhood in freedom.

Hyde would go on to lead the impeachment process against President Clinton, only to have his own hypocrisy revealed again: he'd had an affair -- which he excused as a "youthful indiscretion" though when it happened, he was married with children and in his 40's.

Hyde's relentless opposition to a woman's human right to make her own childbearing decisions, including his consistent record, through his retirement last year, of voting against preventive family planning services, continues to cause immense human suffering and injustice.

Let Henry Hyde rest, but not in peace.

Comments

[GoBamaGo]

What a great post

[sandbird]

I don't think any of us really are glad that he is dead, it's more that we mourn the suffering that he potentially caused while he was in a position to make a difference in a positive way to prevent unwanted pregnancies and thereby prevent abortions...he was an iconic woman-hater.

[angel12]

Henry Hyde's gross hypocrisy is well documented in the book "Henry Hyde's Moral Universe" by Dennis Berstein and Leslie Kean. It seems that every article referred to him as a "gentleman of the old school." Nothing was gentlemanly about this grossly fat phoney. America is better off with him gone.

[americanwhocares]

Ms. Feldt, you go girl, excellent post, I truly wish more people would expose the republicans for the hypocrites they are.

[rroy]

As a former Illinoisian,I have always fealt a twinge of shame every time I saw Henry Hyde on television.I never read or looked for any of his opeds.The shame I fealt was brought on by the fact that so many of my fellow Illinois citizens could actualy cast enough votes to put this backward thinking phoney zealot in office.

Every time I saw him I was struck with the disgusting impression I was watching a phoney hypocrite with no virtues beyond the ability of expressing phoney Evangalistic zeal.

I wonder what good ol' Henry would have done if one of his paramors(I don't doubt for an instant there was more than one)got knocked up.

[Goofy]

Bravo!! This country is in a civil war, and this is not the time to comfort the enemey ...

[rucognizant]

jumundstuk, REREAD............That was 1997 NOT 1977!

[retarius]

I have no particular axe to grind on abortion: from my perspective it is a private issue between the folks that were involved in the pregnancy (that is 'folks' rathrr than 'folk' or 'woman'...ie in my opinion the man should have a say as well)...but I'm glad that this filthy hypocrite has finally died...if there were any justice he would have died years ago, after a long, painful, disfiguring and disabling illness...it is times like these that I wished that I believed in some sort of afterlife, since the thought of this silver-maned turd roasting in hell would have warmed my heart.

[jmundstuk]

Nice post and story, except that Hyde couldn't have been chair of the House Judiciary Committee in 1977. The Democrats were in the majority and would remain so until the 1994 election. Maybe you testified before a joint committee, which would explain why Kennedy, a senator, was present and maybe Hyde was ranking member or something. Makes a better story your way, but facts do matter.

[Lisette]

Thanks for the great post. Many people agree with you, including me.

[dgrffy]

A vile editorial. The disrespect and 'who cares if they don't agree with us' attitude speaks volumes for our culture. When I read things like this, it reminds me why I am never surprised when kids walk into schools and open fire. Why shouldn't they? Where are their examples? He sucked, he was evil, I'm glad he's dead? And we have the gall of acting shocked when one of our youngsters (those 3 out of 4 who weren't aborted) walk into a room and open fire. Why wouldn't Henry be a hypocrite? If he wasn't, he would have been a lonely man in a country filled with them.

[texanna]

Sweet Karma would be his return as a girl, born to a poor woman who had too many children already and no resources for her latest offspring.

[rollingdivision]

The author's closing remark speaks volumes.

[sorenmeetsdylan]

How indecent can you get, to wish ill to a man who is deceased?

[Dlynne14]

Like Mr. Falwell, who passed away this year, Mr. Hyde is your typical, hypocritical right wing Neocon man.
And he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Freedom for his love of the unborn???!!! What a joke. What about the love of the already born?

It is so sad that these foolish, self centered men, who could never walk in the foot steps of a woman, have the power to dictate what he believes is best for them.