Stop Stupak!

This Wednesday, December 2, hundreds of women, including Ms. Foundation grantees, will head to Washington, D.C. to rally and lobby against a potential rollback of women’s basic rights that would deny abortion coverage to millions of women who currently have it and to millions more who lack access today. Click here for more information on the Stop Stupak Campaign.

It is extraordinary that in 2009 women’s right to reproductive care of their choosing is on the chopping block again. The Stupak Amendment is wrong and regressive, and goes well beyond reinforcing the Hyde Amendment—already harmful in its own right—despite what mainstream media is saying. As the Senate debates its health care bill, we expect them to do better. It is simply unacceptable—and contradictory—to trade away women’s access to reproductive services under the guise of expanding care. And who will be most impacted? Ultimately, all women and their families, but disproportionally low-income women and women of color. Once again, Congress runs the risk of creating another exclusionary policy when we should be striving for inclusive and equitable solutions—and most certainly within the context of the stated goals of health care reform.

Our health care grantee organizations Communications Consortium Media Center, Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need and Women of Color United for Health Reform are on the front lines mobilizing to prevent Stupak or a similar Senate amendment from becoming law. Together, they continue to elevate the voices of low-income women and women of color for truly inclusive, equitable reform.