The hearings centered on a package of bills submitted by State Senator James Donovan, who cosponsored a bill last year to repeal the state's liberalized abortion law. Donovan's new bills call for funding of counseling centers for pregnant women, aid to victims of birth defects, and grants to those who adopt children, as well as other measures. The intent of the bills, as the April 6 New York Times put it, is to "discourage elective abortions" through bills that "encourage women to carry their pregnancy to full term."
Speaking for WONAAC, Karen Stamm explained, "Because we do not advocate abortion for women, but rather advocate choice, we fully support all efforts to inform and aid women in making and carrying out whichever course each individual woman chooses." However, Stamm noted that "of all the choices open to women, that of an abortion is still the most shrouded in prejudice and most restricted..." The most pressing task of the state legislature at this time, she said, is to enforce the Supreme Court abortion ruling, provide more funds for abortion clinics, and oppose cutbacks for abortion facilities. She also called on the legislature to pass Bill 842, which would remove age restrictions on the use of contraceptives.
April 26, 1948
APRIL 22 - Enraged and vindictive, the capitalist
government has framed up the United Mine Workers and John L.
Lewis on trumped-up charges of criminal and civil
"contempt."
Federal Judge T. Alan Goldsborough, a faithful Democratic wheelhorse, for the second time has levied an extortionate fine on the miners for their defiance of federal strikebreaking injunctions.
On the recommendations of Truman's Attorney General, Judge Goldsborough on April 20 exacted the punitive fine of $1,400,000 from the UMW and $20,000 from Lewis, the union's president, on the criminal contempt conviction.
The judge is still holding over the miners' heads the threat of further reprisals if they do not end their protest strike against the convictions by Friday, April 23.
If the contempt prosecution was intended to crush the fighting spirit of the miners, it has proved a miserable failure. When Goldsborough handed down his contempt conviction on April 19, the miners began pouring out of the pits once more.
Confronted by more than 250,000 miners still on strike and the certainty of a total shutdown if Lewis were railroaded to prison, the most the government dared to do at the moment was rob the miners of some of their hard-earned dollars. But the union remains solid as granite, determined and unyielding as ever.