Texas NOW Blog

Ms. magazine has been standing up for women for nearly 35 years. In this election year, they're standing strong for reproductive rights, and they need our support. I hope you'll join me in signing their Women's Petition for Safe, Legal, and Accessible Birth Control and Abortion. From the petition:

In its 1972 debut issue, Ms. magazine ran a bold petition in which 53 well-known U.S. women declared that they had undergone abortionsâ??despite state laws rendering the procedure illegal...

Even then, to many it seemed absurd that the government could deny a woman sovereignty over her own body. It is even more absurd in 2006 to learn that an abortion ban has passed into law in South Dakota. The South Dakota ban has been stayed because an initiative to remove this ban has been placed on the stateâ??s November ballot. Whatever happens in South Dakota, 17 states now have trigger laws or pre-Roe bans that will ban abortion if the Supreme Court were to reverse Roe v. Wade. A myriad of restrictions already limit access to abortion in the U.S. for poor women, young women, and women in the military. We know it is time again for women of conscience to stand up and speak truth to power.

At the time of the original Ms. petition, illegal abortions were causing untold suffering in the United States, especially for poor women who had to resort to unsafe self-induced or back-alley abortions. Today, in the developing nations each year, approximately 70,000 women and girls die from botched and unsafe abortions and another 500,000 maternal deaths occurâ??most of this suffering and loss could be prevented. U.S. international family planning policies contribute to this death toll: first, by conditioning its aid on a global gag rule that prevents medical workers from giving even information on abortion; second, by withholding or providing inadequate funds; and finally, by funding abstinence-only education.

We are now starting a new petition, beginning with the names of some of the original 1972 signers...It is time to speak out againâ?? in even larger numbers â?? and to make politicians face their neighbors, influential movers and shakers, and yes, their family members. We cannot, must not â?? for U.S. women and the women of the world â?? lose the right to safe, legal, and accessible abortion or access to birth control.

They get an amen from me. And hey, make a contribution if you can, please. The women at Ms. and The Feminist Majority Foundation fight hard to safeguard our reproductive rights. They track anti-choice violence against family planning clinics and abortion providers. They keep us informed about anti-choice laws at the state level. They lobby Congress. They collected thousands of signatures to pressure the FDA to make EC available over the counter. They'll put your cash to good use, working for your right to choose.