##### Updated format CLINTON/GORE ON ISSUES OF CONCERN TO WOMEN Never before have American women had so many options or been asked to make such difficult choices. It's time not only to make women full partners in government, but also to make government work for American women. The Bush Administration says it is committed to women, but it has repeatedly acted against their interests. A Clinton/Gore Administration will be different. Instead of fighting to deprive women of their legal right to choose, we will support the Freedom of Choice Act -- not because we are "pro-abortion," but because we think certain choices are too personal for politics. Instead of making life-saving research a political issue, we will let it serve American women by lifting the ban on fetal tissue research and directing adequate resources to women's health issues. And instead of vetoing legislation to give Americans the right to take leave from work to care for newborn children and sick relatives -- a right enjoyed in very other major industrialized nation -- we will sign into law the Family and Medical Leave Act. The Bush Administration has failed to do right by American women. We will do better. Protect a woman's right to choose Sign into law the Freedom of Choice Act. Bill Clinton and Al Gore recognize that personal privacy is a fundamental liberty guaranteed and protected by the United States Constitution; and that our government thus has no right to interfere with the difficult and intensely personal decisions women must sometimes make regarding abortion. Signing the Freedom of Choice Act will ensure that a woman's right to choose is not jeopardized by a Supreme Court reversal or limitation of Roe v. Wade. * Urge Congress to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federally funded abortions even for rape and incest victims. * Repeal President Bush's "gag" rule, which prohibits medical personnel in federally funded clinics from advising women on pregnancy options including abortion. * Oppose any federal attempt to limit access to abortion through mandatory waiting periods or parental or spousal consent requirements; support state efforts to require some form of adult counseling or consultation for underage girls who choose to have an abortion as long as workable and effective judicial bypass provisions are attached to such laws. * Initiate measures to protect women and care-givers from intimidation, harassment and threats posed by radical demonstrators who illegally block health clinics. * Reduce the need for abortion by urging Congress to re-authorize the Title X Family Planning Program; by prioritizing research and development of safe, effective contraception at the National Institutes of Health; by providing improved family planning services and education programs; and by ensuring the availability of contraceptives to low-income women. Protect women's rights in the workplace * Support efforts to ensure fair wages for all workers, regardless of gender; and to ban gender-based discrimination in federal hiring, promotion and contracts. * Hire and appoint more women at all levels of government so that a Clinton/Gore Administration better reflects this country's population. * Press for and enforce tough sexual harassment guidelines in all government agencies. Support pro-family and pro-children policies * Grant additional tax relief to families with children. * Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit to guarantee a "working wage" so that no American who works full-time is forced to live in poverty. * Sign into law the Family and Medical Leave Act, which George Bush vetoed in 1990, so that no worker is forced to choose between maintaining his or her job and caring for a newborn child or sick family member. * Create a child care network as complete as the public school network, tailored to the needs of working families; give parents choices between competing public and private institutions. * Establish more rigorous standards for licensing child care facilities and implement improved methods for enforcing them. * Crack down on deadbeat parents by reporting them to credit agencies, so they can't borrow money for themselves when they're not taking care of their children. Use the Internal Revenue Service to collect child support, start a national deadbeat databank, and make it a felony to cross state lines to avoid paying support. Ensure affordable, quality health care for all Americans * Provide health coverage for all Americans with a core benefits package that includes ambulatory physician care, in-patient hospital care, prescription drugs, basic mental health services, and important preventive programs like pre-natal care and annual mammograms. * Sign into law the Women's Health Research Act, the Reproductive Health Equity Act and similar legislative measures designed to address current deficiencies in the treatment of women's health problems. * Use whatever means are available to find cures for diseases like ovarian cancer, breast cancer and osteoporosis including lifting the fetal tissue research ban. * Develop a comprehensive maternal and child health network to reduce both the infant mortality rate and the number of low birth-weight babies. * Support testing of RU-486. We will instruct the FDA to treat RU 486 like any other drug that requires testing, not like a political football. Crack down on violence against women * Sign the Violence Against Women Act, which would provide tougher enforcement and stiffer penalties to deter domestic violence. Reproductive rights * Governor Clinton never wavered in his support of a woman's legal right to choose as set out in the Supreme Courts landmark Roe v. Wade opinion; recently signed an amicus brief in Planned Parenthood v. Casey which argued that the Court should respect stare decisis and uphold the fundamental right to choose as recognized in Roe v. Wade. * Signed a parental notification law which contains an effective judicial bypass provision so that minors who are deemed sufficiently mature to exercise their right to choose are not arbitrarily deprived of it; the original bill would have required parental consent. * Senator Gore has consistently voted to protect a woman's right to choose and is a cosponsor of the Freedom of Choice Act. Women in the workplace * Governor Clinton required every state agency to develop and implement a sexual harassment policy. * Hired and appointed more women to state courts, boards and commissions than all previous Arkansas governors combined; ranked sixth among the nations governors by the National Womens Political Caucus in the percentage of women appointed to cabinet-level positions. * Hired women to manage his gubernatorial campaigns; his longest-tenured chief-of-staff was a woman. * Advocated passage of the Equal Rights Amendment from the beginning; urged Congress to pass a strong Civil Rights bill to prohibit job discrimination in 1991, and appointed an Arkansas task force to develop complementary state legislation. * Bill Clinton has consistently supported legislation to overturn Supreme Court decisions which limit the rights of women, cosponsoring the Equal Remedies Act to provide women greater opportunity to gain compensation for employment discrimination. * Senator Gore has cosponsored legislation that overturned Supreme Court decisions which limited the rights of minorities and women. Laws he cosponsored include the Fair Housing Amendments Act, the Civil Rights Restoration Act, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1990 and 1991. * Cosponsored the Equal Remedies Act, which will remove limitations on dollar amounts of compensatory and punitive damage awards in cases of intentional employment discrimination against women. Families and children * Bill Clinton was a driving force in writing the Family Support Act of 1988, representing the nation's governors in a major revision of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program and Title IV of the Social Security Act. The Family Support Act emphasizes work, child support and family benefits, and encourages and assists needy children and parents in obtaining the education, training and employment necessary to avoid long-term welfare dependence. * Made Arkansas the first state in the country to implement a statewide child care voucher system; named by the National Women's Political Caucus one of 10 "Good Guys" in 1988, recognizing leadership in the campaign for safe, quality child care. * Raised licensing standards for child-care centers, hired more state inspectors to enforce those standards, and established a special fund to train child care workers. * Led Arkansas in initiating, through state and federal funds, comprehensive health clinics in schools, including reproductive health information and services with a local option to distribute contraceptives. * Led efforts to pass a law mandating that deadbeat parents with overdue child support payments be reported to consumer credit agencies; established a rebuttable presumption of paternity if the father's name and social security number are recorded on birth certificates. * The Arkansas Child Support Enforcement Unit has received national recognition for identifying deadbeat parents and for aggressive enforcement of child support payments. * Al Gore cosponsored the Family and Medical Leave Act which President Bush vetoed. * Supported the Child Enforcement Act. Health care * As a leader of the Southern ad National Governors Associations, Bill Clinton helped secure congressional passage of the Pregnant Women and Infants Act, easing Medicaid eligibility requirements for pregnant women. This program has expanded critical pre- and post-natal care services for thousands of women and children in Arkansas and across the nation. * Established the "Good Beginnings" program in 1987, which took advantage of new federal regulations to provide basic health services to more low-income women and their young children; Arkansas was the first state to launch such a program. * Led Arkansas nationally acclaimed efforts to combat unwanted teen pregnancies through school-based clinics, outreach services and consistent and aggressive public advocacy. * Enacted a 1989 law requiring the Department of Health to establish and administer quality standards for x-ray facilities conducting mammography. * Al Gore supported legislation to create an Office of Research on Women's Health to ensure that research on women's health is a priority in the National Institutes of Health. * Supported legislation to lift the ban on fetal tissue research. Violence * Governor Clinton created a Children's Trust Fund, financed by a $5.00 fee on marriage licenses, which finances child abuse and neglect prevention projects through grants. * Signed legislation under which Arkansas pays for examinations of sexual assault victims and publishes treatment guidelines that hospitals are required to follow for those victims. * Senator Gore cosponsored the Violence Against Women Act, which helps make streets, campuses, and homes safe for women. The Act creates the first federal laws to help protect women from spousal abuse. It also defines gender-motivated crimes as bias or hate crimes that violate civil rights. * Cosponsored the Campus Crime Statistics Act to increase safety on campuses by compiling and disseminating crime statistics on campuses. * Supported legislation to expand funding for family violence prevention.