An open letter to Democratic New Jersey Congressman John Adler on the health care reform bill

BY SUSIE WILSON

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

SEX MATTERS

Dear Congressman Adler,

For many years, I have watched with interest your rise to leadership positions during your 17-year career as a Democratic state senator. Although your Third Congressional District is south of mine, I kept an eye on you, because I thought you had the potential to serve in higher office. When you decided to run for an open congressional seat in the Third District — the seat held for many years by Republican Jim Saxton — I realized you might have a tough campaign. Yet I contributed to it and couldn't have been more delighted when you were elected last November.

Although you were only a first-term congressman, I envisioned a long career for you, where you would serve your constituents with great intelligence, empathy, and dedication to the highest ideals of our country. When you called me again this past summer, I made a contribution to your 2010 campaign.

So, I was puzzled to read recently that you were one of 39 Democrats — and the only Democrat from New Jersey — who voted against the Health Care Bill last Saturday night in the House of Representatives. You gave as your reason the lack of cost containment features in the bill, particularly for middle-class families, and that looked a little timid to me.

For one horrible moment, I also thought you had voted for the Stupak-Pitts amendment — the repressive, anti-choice amendment that passed and is now part of the Health Care Reform Bill heading to the Senate. If that language remains intact in the bill that passes the Senate, survives reconciliation, and is signed by the president into law, American women's access to abortion will be seriously undermined.

But I was misinformed and now know that you did not vote for this amendment. My relief about your vote is tied to a memory I have of you from a January day in 1994 when you were serving as a state senator. I was sitting in the balcony of that beautiful little Senate chamber in the State House. The topic on the floor was the vote to override the veto of the "Stress-Abstinence Bill" by lame-duck Governor Jim Florio. This bill would have required all school districts to stress abstinence-only and did not include any provision to discuss other contraception methods during family life and sexuality education courses.

Backers of the bill included Concerned Women for America, New Jersey Right to Life, the New Jersey Catholic Conference, the Christian Coalition, and a number of other religious organizations. Opponents of the bill included the New Jersey Society for Adolescent Medicine, Family Planning Advocates of New Jersey, the AIDS Coalition of Southern New Jersey, and New Jersey Right to Choose — all members of the Coalition for Comprehensive Family Life and Sex Education.

Those who kept scorecards of these dramatic legislative moments had listed you as a solid vote against the attempt to override the veto. But many legislators vote the right way without ever rising to their feet to go on record about why they cast their vote. This takes a little more courage, and on this particular evening, not many Senators were brave enough to do so. You decided to speak.

What made your decision especially memorable to me was that you had one of your young sons sitting next to you at your desk on the floor. I guessed his age then at around nine or ten. You spoke eloquently about the promise and purpose of government in a democracy to enlarge people's rights and liberties rather than restrict them. Your speech transcended the day's issue as you spoke to the heart of our nation's values — our collective belief in the American ideals of possibility, liberty, individual freedom, the right to knowledge, and the right to learn.

I sat in the balcony and thought: "Isn't it wonderful that John's son is listening to his father speak so eloquently about the role of freedom in a democracy? What a lifelong lesson this little boy is getting about the need to always try to thoughtfully expand freedom."

Later that night you, you and other senators saved the day by voting against the motion to override the governor's veto. You helped defeat an effort to constrict young people's freedom to receive information in public schools.

Your recent words on the Senate floor were right on: Restricting coverage for abortions in the new exchanges will not end women's need for them. Women who need abortions-often for serious reasons that we cannot fathom — will get them one way or another. With new restrictions, they will have to wait longer or struggle to raise the funds for an abortion before they find one of a shrinking number of doctors who will perform the procedure, thereby endangering their own health and lives.

John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage is a historical account of politicians who took tough stands and were defeated at the next election-not a comforting thought for a congressman in his first term. Yet Congressman Adler, you showed courage by voting against an amendment that could affect women's right to abortion. I am glad you stood tall on behalf of the women in your district. You remained true to yourself, your son, and the words you spoke so long ago on the floor of the New Jersey State Senate-and for your courage, I congratulate you.

All best wishes,

Susie Wilson

Susie Wilson, former executive coordinator of the Network for Family Life Education at Rutgers University's Center for Applied and Professional Psychology (now renamed Answer), is a national leader in the fight for effective sexuality and HIV/AIDS education and for prevention of adolescent pregnancy. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .