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Tag : reproductive rights
April 27, 2020 by Chanel Dubofsky
Abortion Under Threat: What You Need to Know
While many of us are at home, anti-choice politicians and their supporters are exploiting the anxiety around COVID-19 by attacking access to abortion rights. (Here’s a great graphic from NARAL Iowa depicting the intersection between the politicians who tried to ban abortion in 2019 and those trying to do so now.)
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April 22, 2020 by Steph Black
Sexual Health During the Pandemic: An Expert Speaks
Earlier this week, I had the privilege of chatting with Dr. Jessica Grossman, the CEO of Medicines360, a unique, medtech nonprofit that works to close the inequity gap for women in the medical system. Dr. Grossman and her company do vital work year-round, to help make sure women across the globe can access reproductive medicines, such as treatments for fibroids and Liletta, a brand of IUD, of Medicines360, she and her company have been able to provide over half a million IUDS to women, a third of whom are low-income or relying on safety-net clinics.
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March 13, 2020 by admin
When the Jewish Fight for Abortion Came to My Own Backyard
My mother likes to say that I’ve been involved with social justice since I was in the womb. I trick-or-treated for UNICEF and tagged along with her to B’nai Brith Women meetings and pro-choice rallies starting in the 1970s.
I am now Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ) Southwest District President, where I lead Reform Jewish sisterhoods in eight states across the Southwest. It has been so meaningful to lead this group of women and build power to fight for our rights in a time when Southern lawmakers seem more eager than ever to restrict them.
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January 21, 2020 by admin
Roe Still Stands — But Not for Everyone
June 27, 2018 began like an ordinary workday. A recent college graduate, I was spending the summer interning at NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, doing grant research.
I was sitting around a table with the staff pitching my initial findings when our phones buzzed. A breaking news alert: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy had announced his retirement.
The calls from concerned Texans started pouring in immediately. Kennedy was a decisive swing vote on abortion and other issues of reproductive health. What would his retirement mean for the future of reproductive rights?
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January 16, 2020 by admin
This Year, We Will Fight for Abortion.
Abortion rights are suspended from a precipice in states across the country. Activists are fighting not only unjust laws, but also our own side’s fatigue after decades of backlash.
How to find clarity and purpose in the middle of this sense of overwhelm, and share space with other urgent issues — from the environment to immigration? Here is how an intergenerational cross-section of leaders, activists and writers plan to rededicate their selves to abortion rights in the coming months. Within each of these plans is a list of ways for us, too, to take action.
In 2020 I will work to elect those who will let women decide when or whether they will have a child and support the centers that are providing the services to women— including creating them ourselves! Only if we organize, can we change this world.
HEATHER BOOTH is an American civil rights activist, feminist, and political strategist and the founder of the Jane Collective, a pre-Roe network of underground abortion services.
I will become an abortion doula to guide folks undergoing the procedure.
STEPH BLACK is a writer and activist in DC who is passionate about the intersections of Judaism and feminism.
I plan to do a number of things. Here are some:
• Make sure everyone knows about Euki, a free app released by Women Help Women that has information about how and where to access an abortion in the U.S., including how to self-manage an abortion.
• Talk more openly and honestly about the challenges of motherhood in hopes of giving others permission to do the same, and point to the systemic inequalities (lack of universal childcare, lack of one-year paid parental leave, workplaces hostile to families, etc) that lead to this so moms stop blaming themselves for not being perfect. We can’t “life hack” our way out of parenting problems when really, the systems are failing us. This is reproductive justice too.
• Hold the leaders of reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations accountable for creating healthy work environments for their staff, who are doing the majority of the work trying to keep abortion legal in this country and deserve to have the best benefits and salaries.
• Hold journalists, movement leaders, and funders accountable for centering the voices, experiences, and leadership of women of color, especially Black women, and funding them at the highest level to do reproductive health, rights, and justice work
• Center racism and systemic equities in all conversations about abortion, and make sure every panel, article, or event about abortion has multiple people who’ve had abortions on/in it.
• Continue to make monthly donations to my local abortion fund and abortion funds in the South and Midwest, and to All-Options, who provide emotional support to people through all pregnancy experiences.
STEPH HEROLD is a researcher who studies depictions of abortion on TV and film while chasing after a two-year-old and a dog.
This year I’m committing to calling out abortion stigma when I see and hear it. Abortion stigma is negative and incorrect beliefs about abortion. Sometimes abortion stigma is easy to recognize, i.e. “Abortion is dangerous.” This is demonstrably untrue, according to actual science. Sometimes, though, it’s more subtle and insidious, like, “I would never have an abortion, but it’s fine for other people,” and, “No one wants to have an abortion.” Abortion stigma literally prevents people from being able to access abortion care and from seeking it, even when they know it’s what they want, because yes, sometimes people actually do want to have abortions. So this year, I’ll be unrepentantly yelling about abortion stigma, and this is your warning.
CHANEL DUBOFSKY writes fiction and non-fiction in Brooklyn, NY.
As a writer, this year I will find new ways to deepen and widen the conversation about abortion, without sacrificing passion or avoiding conflict. Stories can be bridges.
ELLEN MEEROPOL is the author of four novels, Her Sister’s Tattoo, Kinship of Clover, On Hurricane Island, and House Arrest.
I welcome 2020 with unapologetic enthusiasm for abortion, plans for relentless organizing to dismantle reproductive oppression, and the knowledge that we have nothing to lose but our chains. Onward, until justice is won!
PAMELA MERRITT, co-director of Reproaction, a new direct action group forming to increase access to abortion and advance reproductive justice.
Anyone who is passionate about defending reproductive freedom can make an impact in this fight. You can send a message to your lawmakers — especially if you live in one of the 31 states that have introduced or passed extreme bans on abortion this year alone — and make it clear that you expect them to stand up for reproductive rights.
You can help make our work possible by donating to NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion fund in your community, or another organization fighting for reproductive freedom.
If you’re ready to dig deeper, you can sign up to volunteer and attend events in your community with NARAL.
Actions as simple as informing yourself about the threats to abortion access and talking to your friends and family about how high the stakes are can be incredibly powerful because the anti-choice movement depends on people’s silence and the spread of disinformation about abortion to advance their deeply unpopular agenda.
ILYSE HOGUE, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America
Here’s a little-known fact: federal judges serve lifetime appointments. That means that no matter who is sitting in the Oval Office in a few years or even decades, an unprecedented number of right-wing federal judges personally nominated by President Trump will still be sitting on the bench. As a direct result, generations of women could lose their reproductive rights. They will lose them on our watch.
It isn’t often that you see crowds protesting outside of Federal District Courts, as thousands did in D.C. during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.
It is time for that to change.
We must harness that energy in our local communities, too. Federal courts, unlike a bill in Congress or a legislative push in a state house, seem distant to most voters. But changing them is completely within reach. And women can and should drive that change — before, during and after these judges are nominated.
Democrat and Republican members of Congress need to be held responsible for allowing the undermining of our courts.
SHEILA KATZ, CEO of National Council of Jewish Women
We will raise awareness of Crisis Pregnancy Centers and the danger they pose to reproductive healthcare through our Pro-Truth campaign. Crisis Pregnancy Centers exist as a service arm of the anti-abortion movement, working to keep pregnant people from being able to access the full spectrum of reproductive healthcare choices, including abortion. Our campaign works to educate people about Crisis Pregnancy Centers, and to advocate for laws to regulate these fake clinics. You can find out more and get involved at protruthny.org.
AVIVA ZADOFF is the Director of Advocacy and Volunteer Engagement National Council of Jewish Women New York
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January 7, 2020 by Arielle Silver-Willner
The Fake Abortion Clinics That Mislead Patients
You’re well aware of the dire state of reproductive justice in the United States. You know that recent legislative moves such as the so-called “Heartbeat Bills” and the reduction of funding for Planned Parenthood severely threaten the lives of all folks capable of pregnancy or experiencing health conditions that affect the female reproductive system.
But there’s another threat to reproductive justice which works in tandem with these laws. Because even as abortion access gets choked by a million restrictions, Crisis Pregnancy Centers proliferate.
CPCs, also known as “fake abortion clinics” or, euphemistically, “Pregnancy Resource Centers” are essentially anti-choice hubs of misinformation. Often located in close proximity to an abortion-providing women’s health center such as Planned Parenthood, they aim to reach pregnant, option-seeking people before they make the choice to terminate. Many are religiously affiliated. However, as nonprofit organizations, they are also eligible to receive Title X funding.
In New York City, CPCs must adhere to legal guidelines intended to ensure that visitors are aware that they are not entering an abortion clinic, or even a medical center. New York City Local Law 17 requires these offices to display disclosure statements in both English and Spanish, advising visitors that they do not employ licensed medical professionals, and thus conveying that they will be receiving social services, but not medical services. However, Centers outside of NYC are entirely unregulated, as they are not technically medical centers or businesses. Even so, they can and do interfere with the health of their “patients.”
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March 7, 1977 by admin
Fate of Israel’s New Abortion Law Uncertain with Begin Victory
The Israeli Knesset (Parliament) passed in February a liberalized abortion bill that had generated a good deal of controversy.
The measure legalizes abortion in the early stages of pregnancy upon the approval of a committee of three, which must consist of two doctors (one a gynecologist) and a social worker. The committee must certify that the birth would injure the physical or emotional health of the mother, or that the child would be born with a physical or mental defect, or that the mother is under 16 or over 40, or that the pregnancy resulted from incest, rape or was out of wedlock.
Marcia Freedman, who had previously sponsored a bill for abortion on demand, said that the measure that passed still “leaves doctors in charge of a woman’s womb” and that the conditions necessary for a legal abortion would continue to leave women to the tender loving greed of the illegal abortionists. (Last summer Israel’s association of gynecologists, many of whom have grown wealthy doing illegal abortions for upper and middle-class women, condemned the proposed liberalized abortion bill. Members of the Israeli Feminist Movement demonstrated their protest at this convention.) Estimates of Israel’s current number of abortion’s range from 40,000 to 70,000 per year.
The liberalized abortion bill faced vehement opposition, primarily from the religious and conservative elements in the Knesset, among them Geula Cohen of the Likud (right-wing) bloc. The bill was passed by a show of hands while the Orthodox M.K’s were outside the Knesset building holding an anti-abortion demon stration.
Israel’s Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren demanded the new law be abolished because it has “no moral validity.” Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said it “permitted murder.”
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