Dr. RYAN. That is not my area.

Senator WILLIAMS. Mr. Golden?

Mr. GOLDEN. No, sir, other than the fact I am aware of the fact that budgetary cuts made 2 years prior to the Willowbrook incident is construed to be primarily responsible for that lack of care.

Senator WILLIAMS. What is your observation throughout the State in this area of necessary State concern, has there been a lack of attention to the needs of the retarded or mentally ill?

Mr. GOLDEN. I could not competently discuss that with you, sir. I regret that I can't. But it would be my own conjecture in the matter and I don't think it would be appropriate.

Senator WILLIAMS. I appreciate your observation.

No further questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. We appreciate your being here.

The next witness is Prof. Charles E. Rice, national adviser for the U.S. Coalition for Life.

Professor Rice, if you will stand to be sworn.

[Professor Rice stands.]

The CHAIRMAN. Do you swear that the testimony that you are about to give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?

Professor RICE. I do.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

You may proceed.

STATEMENT OF PROF. CHARLES E. RICE, MEMBER OF THE
NATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD, U.S. COALITION FOR LIFE

Professor RICE. Mr. Chairman, my name is Charles E. Rice. I am a professor of law at the Notre Dame Law School and a member of the National Advisory Board of the U.S. Coalition for Life, a research and resource center serving prolife groups in the United States and abroad.

It is the function of the coalition to promote a greater awareness and understanding of the moral and legal dimensions of such issues as abortion and governmental promotion of family planning as well as economic development and maternal and child care.

The main focus of my remarks will involve an assessment of Mr. Rockefeller's qualifications in light of his personal support of permissive abortion and his involvement in the population control move

ment.

Mr. Rockefeller is perhaps the leading proponent of permissive abortion in the United States. He strongly supported the 1970 enactment in New York of what was then the most permissive abortion law in the United States. Then, when the legislature repealed that law in 1972, Governor Rockefeller vetoed that repeal. He is a strong supporter of the 1973 abortion decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. It is fair to say that the nomination of Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President offers this Nation a perhaps irrevocable choice between the prolife and antilife philosophies. The critical nature of this issue is sometimes obscured in the discussion of Mr. Rockefeller's nomination. However, I suggest that this committee ought to reflect upon the fact that a vote for his confirmation will be a vote to adopt the totalitarian

philosophy of permissive abortion as the public orthodoxy of this Nation.

In all the wars this Nation has fought, from Lexington and Concord to the Vietnam war, American battle deaths totaled 668,226. Yet in 1972 alone, 700,000 innocent children in the womb were killed, legally, by abortion in this country. And this total was reached under the partial relaxation of abortion laws that existed before the Supreme Court abortion rulings of January 22, 1973.

In the wake of those decisions, it is estimated that 1.6 million unborn babies will be legally killed by abortion each year in the United States.

The Supreme Court abortion decisions have ushered in the greatest slaughter of innocent human beings in any nation in the history of the world. Under those rulings, abortion cannot be forbidden until the last trimester and even then it cannot be forbidden if it is performed for the physical or mental health of the mother. The decisions are in effect a license for elective abortion at any stage of the pregnancy, right up to the moment of normal delivery.

The most important civil right is the right to live. The most important civil rights issue is abortion. The Supreme Court of the United States has decreed in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton that the child in the womb is a nonperson and therefore not entitled to constitutional protection of his right to live. This decision is based on the same principle as the Dred Scott case of 1857, in which the Supreme Court held that free descendants of slaves could not be citizens and said that slaves were not even persons. The abortion decisions of 1973 are the Dred Scott case of the 20th century. They also reflect the same principle that underlay the Nazi extermination of the Jews, that an innocent human being can be defined as a nonperson and killed if his existence is inconvenient or uncomfortable to others or if those others consider him unfit to live.

If an innocent human being can be defined as a nonperson because he is too young, that is, he has not lived 9 months from his conception, there is no reason in principle why he cannot be defined as a nonperson because he is too old, or too retarded, or too black, or too politically undesirable.

Apart from the horrible reality of legalized abortion, it is relevant also to consider the involvement of Nelson Rockefeller, his family and their foundations, in promoting active government intervention in the area of family planning. The U.S. Coalition for Life will submit to this committee next week a brief with documentary information concerning the activities of the Population Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in the population control movement, as well as detailed information on the public statements and positions of the nominee, Nelson A. Rockefeller, on that subject. My function today is a limited one.

For the present, it will be useful for me to observe that there should be widespread public concern over the entry of government into the private area of reproductive choices. This is particularly so where that entry involves an aggressive promotion by government of techniques of population limitation which are hostile to the beliefs of a substantial segment of the community.

The Rockefeller Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund have been actively involved in this population control movement, as

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has been the Population Council which was organized by John D. Rockefeller III, în 1952. The Population Council has been particularly notable in its encouragement of liberalized abortion laws as well as governmental promotion of sterilization and contraception.

As Vice President, Mr. Nelson Rockefeller would play a major role in the formation of domestic and foreign policy and programs including those programs and policies related to population control. It is fair to say that his nomination would commit the United States to a continuation and expansion of the existing objectionable governmental involvement in the family planning area.

It is regrettable that these hearings on Mr. Rockefeller's nomination are being conducted with what appears to be precipitate speed. There are many pertinent aspects of the nominee's qualifications which have not yet been adequately explored in the public record of these proceedings.

For example, the detailed brief that will be presented to this committee next week by the U.S. Coalition for Life will raise serious questions as to possible Rockefeller financial interests in fertility control devices and drugs which are employed in population control programs promoted by the U.S. Government. There are numerous examples, as to which we will supply you with specific data, of substantial subsidization by the Rockefeller interests of population control centers, foundations, and other activities.

Because of the complexity of the involvement of the U.S. Government, the United Nations and the private foundations in the population control movement, there exists a possibility of conflict of interest on the part of the nominee. At the very least, no nominee should assume the office of Vice President if he or foundations in which he is involved have financial interests in the population control activities which the U.S. Government directly or indirectly supports.

The involvements of the nominee and his family in the antilife population control movement are extensive. These involvements will be detailed in the brief which will be submitted by the Coalition for Life to this committee next week. However, my main concern here is not with such things as conflict of interest and financial calculations. Rather, I am concerned because Nelson Rockefeller is more than merely a proponent of permissive abortion. Rather, he is, more than any other person, the incarnate symbol of the antilife movement in the United States.

The approval of his nomination would involve an implicit official approval of his antilife philosophy. The American people have repeatedly rejected his efforts to gain the Presidency. I suggest that the popular judgment is accurate in this case. The consideration of a Vice Presidential nomination pursuant to the 25th amendment is not an appropriate occasion for Congress to fasten upon the American people a nominee whose evident philosophy of life is so hostile to so many.

I submit that the nomination of Nelson Rockefeller should not be approved.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Professor Rice.

Does your objection go beyond the question of the abortion issue or is that the basic objection?

Professor RICE. I think that's the basic objection. I have other objections in terms of fiscal policy and various other matters but I wanted to

emphasize on behalf of the Coalition for Life that the abortion issue and more extensively the entire issue of Government involvement in family planning constitute the single most crucial issue facing this Nation.

The CHAIRMAN. I'm sure you recognize that it would be impossible for us to have any nominee with whom all members of this committee would agree. So that raises a difficult problem for us because many of us on this committee disagree with his stand on the abortion issue.

I might say I have reviewed a number of interviews with members of the clergy of various faiths who have found objection because of the abortion issue, but have still said that they thought he was a good nominee and should be confirmed even though they completely disagree on this issue of abortion.

Professor RICE. That is emphatically not our position.

The CHAIRMAN. What?

Professor RICE. That is not our position.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand that.

Professor RICE. If I may suggest, in that connection if you're talking about the nominee and his position on this particular issue I think you just have to put it in the context of how important this issue is. I don't think that it is possible for this nomination in view of the importance of the issue to be considered as simply a hearing on personal qualifications or attributes or professional ability of the nominee. Rather for better or worse and without anybody's desiring it this nomination has become in effect a referendum within the Congress on the issue of whether this Nation is going to follow the antilife or prolife philosophy and the reason for that I suggest is because if you scoured the Nation from one end to the other you could never find a more committed, more prominent, and more symbolic representative of the antilife philosophy that urges and affirms the position that an innocent human being may legitimately be defined as a nonperson. So it is there and the reality is that he's the nominee and I suggest that a vote for his confirmation is a vote for his policy and will commit the Nation to those policies. The CHAIRMAN. Let me say I completely disagree with you on that statement. I want to assure you that if I vote for his confirmation as I did with Mr. Ford's nomination that it is in no way an approval by me of all the other issues on which we may differ. That situation would exist exactly the same in this case.

I may disagree with Mr. Rockefeller on a number of issues-and I may or may not vote for him-but if I do it certainly cannot be construed that I approve of his stand on many, many issues that he's taken.

Senator Griffin.

Senator GRIFFIN. I would agree with you, Mr. Chairman. I would suggest that the effort here to try to say that the vote on Mr. Rockefeller's nomination is a vote for or against the right-to-life issue is inappropriate. I think that if and when Mr. Rockefeller is confirmed the right-to-life people certainly wouldn't want to have the Congress consider the confirmation as a rejection of their position on abortion. Professor RICE. What I'm saying is that there's not a legal commitment in that sense and I'm not saying in response to Senator Cannon that a vote for Governor Rockefeller is indicative of internal disposition on the part of any Member of the Senate or the House who votes in that direction.

Senator GRIFFIN. I'm trying to read your statement and in several places it looks as if you are saying almost that the Government is making a commitment on abortion by voting on Governor Rockefeller's nomination. Conceivably, we might approve Mr. Rockefeller's nomination and agree with you later on the very issue that you're talking about.

Professor RICE. Right, But I do maintain that position for this reason, because the nomination, in view of the nominee's prominence in the population control movement, has taken on a symbolic character which simply cannot be ignored.

I think regardless of the fact that Members of the Congress may vote for his nomination for other reasons while disagreeing with him as strongly as I do on the abortion issue, nevertheless there is an effect, unintended if you will, but an effect that is not just the nomination of an individual who happens to hold a stand on abortion with which I or any other individual might disagree; rather, this is a nomination of an individual who himself is the most single prominent advocate of permissive abortion in the Nation; and I don't think those can be disentangled because there is this very symbolic effect.

Senator GRIFFIN. Professor, are you aware that President Ford while he was a Congressman before he became President or Vice President cosponsored the constitutional amendment that would overturn the Supreme Court decision?

Professor RICE. Yes. I'm aware of his prolife position.

Senator GRIFFIN. And apparently at least on the public record the President doesn't fully share the views of

Professor RICE. That's right.

Senator GRIFFIN [continuing]. The Vice Presidential designee? Professor RICE. Yes, sir. That's right. What we're pointing out is not to imply that there is any internal disposition on anybody who for other reasons may agree with the nomination.

What we're pointing out is the very real symbolic impact of this thing, where without the intention of anybody who would vote on him, we suggest that this would be a signal then to the people of the United States and to the world that the U.S. Government is in effect approving of the nominee and his most prominent policies which include his policy on the life issue.

Senator GRIFFIN. It is only a signal if you get people to believe it is, I don't think the Congress intends it to be a signal.

Professor RICE. I think it will have that effect. I don't think our evidence on the matter will be determinative on the world or the national opinion. I do not think you should consider it in isolation. Senator GRIFFIN. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Allen.

Senator ALLEN. Laying aside for the moment Governor Rockefeller's confirmation, you take the position that no person, no matter how well qualified otherwise, who has the same views as Governor Rockefeller on abortion and population control should become the President or Vice President of the United States?

Professor RICE. Yes, sir, very definitely.

Senator ALLEN. That's your position?

Professor RICE. If I may state briefly the reason for that, it is because of the very basic jurisprudential character of the Supreme Court de