National Women’s Law Center
Not surprisingly in retrospect, when I began work on women’s rights in the early 1970s, Senator Kennedy was the very first Senator I met. I testified at a hearing he held in 1973, where he uncovered the coercive use of an experimental contraceptive drug on low-income and institutionalized women. Senator Kennedy showed enormous compassion and concern for the shameful plight faced by these women and great kindness and understanding when they came forward to testify. And he did not rest until government protections were promulgated to prevent such abuses in the future.
He mastered the intricacies of the laws at issue and what needed to be done to right the wrongs he had brought to light. And he put together a superb staff to carry out the strategy that he developed. I learned then what has been reinforced so many times since—that there was no more principled, more hard working nor more effective force in the fight for justice and a better life for all than Senator Kennedy.
There is virtually no legislative battle that I have been involved in for more than 35 years that he has not had a major role in leading: better protections for women’s health, stronger laws against sexual harassment, a restored and effective Title IX, judges that respect Constitutional and legal rights that women rely upon, programs and policies that help working families make it and the poor literally survive. Most recently, he led the effort to enact the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. And the health care reform he championed to the end would provide the health care security that is especially important to women, including ending insurance companies’ widespread practice of charging women more than men.
When last I saw Senator Kennedy at the White House health care summit this spring, we reminisced about those women whose cause he had championed in 1973. He never forgot them nor the many millions of others in need of his help. His loss is incalculable.
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