Don’t Let Congress Run Over Women’s Health. The choice is yours. Here’s what you can do.
Twenty formerly pro-choice Democrats — all of them men — voted on November 7, 2009, alongside Republicans in the House of Representatives to roll back women’s rights. They helped pass the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which would restrict a woman’s right to abortion and effectively prohibit millions of women from using their own money to purchase any private health insurance that provides comprehensive reproductive health care benefits.
You have already proven that you know how to Take Action. As we saw on Jan. 13, more than 700,000 people responded to the call to action in one day. This included more than 500 that signed our petition, and features in over 30 blogs. Since the beginning of the campaign 5 weeks ago, Not Under the Bus has reached more than 19 million people. But our work is not done yet, and we have only just begun the journey to reproductive rights.
So, please, continue to stand up against health care that blatantly jeopardizes a women’s right to choose and take action:
Petitions
- Petition by Planned Parenthood: “Tell the Obama Administration: Undo the Abortion Coverage Ban”
- Petition by National Women’s Law Center: “Stand Up Against Blanket Coverage Prohibition”
- Petition by NARAL Pro-Choice America: “Tell President Obama: NO Abortion Coverage Ban in High Risk Pools”
- Petition by the Feminist Majority Foundation “Women Will Not Go Back.”
- Call your representatives in Congress and urge them: “Let’s Finish Reform Right” (an action initiated by Health Care for America Now).
- Petition by NARAL Pro-Choice America to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama. Please sign by Jan. 20 and urge them to fix the bill before bringing it to a final vote! The goal is to collect 30,000 signatures.
- Petition put forward by the American Civil Liberties Union, calling to protect women’s access to abortion in health care reform.
- Petition by the Feminist Majority Foundation: “Stop Stupak/Pitts — Women Won’t Go Back!”
- Petition put forward by the Shalom Center: “A Jewish Letter to Sen. Joseph Lieberman on Pekuach Nefesh (Saving Life) & the Health-care Bill.”
- Petition “Hyde — 30 Years Is Enough” by the National Network of Abortion Funds, urging Congress to repeal the Hyde Amendment that was passed in 1976 and prohibits federal Medicaid funding for abortion in almost all circumstances. “Thirty years is enough! Fund abortion. Protect dignity and justice for all women!”
- Petition by the National Organization for Women to U.S. Senators.
- Join “Being a Woman Is Not a Pre-Existing Condition” and sign a petition to your representatives, urging them to pass a fair health care reform now, where women pay the same premiums as men for the same coverage.
And Also…
- Contact your Senators now and urge them to oppose the Manager’s Amendment in the Senate health care reform bill!
- Take action and be pro-active by joining local campaigns and events to show your support for abortion rights in your area.
- Take part in the Hanger Project, a new grassroots effort started by youth activists to prevent Congress from further restricting women’s access to safe abortion services through health care reform.
- Show your support, sign up and join the conversation by adding this Twibbon to your Twitter account to protest the Stupak-Amendment from jeopardizing women’s rights.
- Join the “Coalition to Pass Health Care Reform and Stop Stupak,” organized by a broad group of advocacy organizations from the progressive and women’s health communities. Tweet about it and send to your friends.
- Write a letter to the editor to your local paper.
- Tweet your outrage and use our hashtag #underthebus to bring together the discussion.
- Post a call to action on your Facebook wall.
- Contact your Senator and Representative (find them here) to take immediate action and undo the damage done to our reproductive rights. We need to safeguard women’s equality, including access to health care and the full range of reproductive health services.
- Join the efforts of the Firedoglake phone bank initiative to stop Stupak. Tweet about it and send to your friends.
- Join the discussion on the New York Times blog on Women and Healthcare and how the reform would impact women’s health.
- Submit a call your Member of Congress request, an initiative put forward by the Center for Reproductive Rights.
- Visit NARAL Pro-Choice America and Take Action.
- Finally, spread the words of activists like Rebecca Sive, who voice their concern about the direction the health care reform debate is taking: “It will be 1968 all over again if America’s young women don’t wake up and realize that women’s reproductive rights can only be secured by battling to secure this human right, the right to control one’s own body. […] Recognize that today’s fight is a defining battle for American women.”And remember Dorothy Roberts’ assertion: “Reproduction […], more than anything else, tells you how a society values people.”
