Jay Bowman, chairman of the Georgia Right to Life Committee, offered testimony in Washington last Thursday before the U.S. Senate Special Sub-Committee on Human Resources.

Members of the sub-committee are Senators Beall (R-Md.), Cranston (D-Cal.), Mondale (D-Minn.), Randolph (D-W.Va.) and Stafford (R-Vt.). Only Senator Cranston was present to hear Bowman’s testimony.

Bowman is president of the Atlanta archdiocesan pastoral council and a member of Holy Cross parish. His testimony follows:

“My name is Jay Bowman. I am chairman of the Georgia Right to Life Committee and a member of the executive board of the National Right to Life Committee.

My testimony will be brief, and will concentrate on only a small portion of the proposed bill. My brevity is necessitated by the short notice given to me about these hearings. I was contacted by the chairman’s office on May 1, only nine days ago. Not until last Friday, did I receive the committee print of the bill. I wonder if it could be possible that the pro-abortion witnesses were given such short notice also. It is conceivable that Planned Parenthood was given less than two weeks to prepare? Or did they, in fact, participate in the drafting of this bill, either covertly or overtly? I am compelled to appear before you under protest.

Section 1008, which prohibits the use of funds for programs involving abortion, is identical in wording to the existing law. And it will be as ineffective. Organizations such as Planned Parenthood, which vigorously promotes abortion through its propaganda and provides abortion in its clinics, can easily circumvent the intent of this section by hiring a competent accountant. In 1971, Dr. Alan Guttmacher, president of Planned Parenthood, stated that “these government grants free unrestricted citizens’ contributions to finance new areas of service excluded from government subsidy.” What could Dr. Guttmacher have meant, but abortion clinics?

One piece of pro-abortion propaganda available from Planned Parenthood is a “comic book” entitled “Ten Heavy Facts About Sex.” Although its listed price is 25 cents, Planned Parenthood gives it away. Besides dealing with penis size and masturbation, this “comic” book contains the following information on abortion: “We think having an abortion is more moral than bringing an unwanted child into this world. Having a medical abortion before the twentieth week is safer than giving birth.” In one sentence, they provide our youth with a standard of morality. And, in the next, they practice deception. No objective study, based upon reliable data, has ever shown abortion, at any stage, to be safer than childbirth. On the contrary, it has been conclusively proven that the rates of maternal morbidity and mortality are far lower for mothers who deliver their children than for those who abort (to say nothing of the mortality rate of aborted children).

Emory University’s Family Planning Program also provides abortion information to our youth through a magazine entitled “What’s Happening”, which is funded by a grant from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. After disposing of the alternatives to abortion in two lines, “What’s Happening” then glosses over the seriousness of abortion and tells the young mother-not-to-be what number to call if she wants one.

Not only does H.E.W. subsidize the dissemination of pro-abortion propaganda, it also funds its compilation. In July 1972, the Atlanta Constitution reported that H.E.W. had granted $185,000 to four Emory University researchers for a two-year study of the comparative psychological effects of abortion and the bearing of an unwanted child. Georgia Right to Life sought to have the grant rescinded for two reasons. First, two of the principal researchers were known to be pro-abortion. One of them, Dr. Charles Butler, ran the abortion clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. The other, Dr. Lawrence Baker, had debated pro-life speakers on numerous occasions. Our second objection was that even if there were no question about the objectivity of the researchers, the validity of the study would still be in doubt based upon its short duration. Two years is hardly long enough for some of the serious psychological sequelae of abortion to manifest themselves.

In effect, our government has been directly subsidizing both the promotion and the performance of abortions. Section 1008 should be modified to prohibit funds being allocated to organizations which, in any way, promote abortion. If the prohibition is not extended in this manner, organizations such as Planned Parenthood and Emory Family Planning will continue to get around the prohibition by simple bookkeeping.

The fact that I confined my objections solely to this one section should not be taken as my tacit approval of the rest of the bill. Rather, it indicates the lack of advance notice mentioned earlier. I reiterate my protest, and request that either these hearings be extended by this sub-committee, or that additional hearings be scheduled by the full Committee on Labor and Public Welfare.