What a force Nita Lowey was. Tenacious supporter of women’s and reproductive rights, she was at our side, and leading, in every major Congressional battle over women’s access to reproductive health services here and abroad. Her office was the first we would call when some new threat would emerge from the Neolithic swamps of the Reactionary Right. Nita would pick up the phone herself and lead the counter strategy. She was solid, and we knew she would never waver.

As for Alan Simpson, Republican Senator from Wyoming, I give credit where credit is due. He was a steadfast supporter of reproductive rights when that stand was growing increasingly unpopular in his Republican Party. I met him in Cairo when he attended the 1994 UN Conference on Population and Development, lending the US delegation bipartisan support for an agenda that included expanded family planning efforts. He voted against ban on late term abortions but was not supportive of Federal funding for abortions except in limited circumstances.

Irony indeed that Nita Lowey and Alan Simpson clashed heatedly over Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas, a clash that Simpson later regretted. He voted to put anti-Roe Justices on the Supreme Court, saying, “I wanted people on the court regardless of ideologies. I wanted credible public servants with brains.” I don’t think he got them.