August 2007 |  From the desk of Kelli Conlin, President
As you know, we've been working all summer on our campaign to gain support for RHAPP (the Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act), also known as "New York's Roe." This bill will guarantee that if Roe v. Wade does fall (and let's all continue to work to make sure that never happens!) safe and legal abortion care will still be available in New York State. We've been working all the angles this summer to ensure support for this bill - from phone calls to senators' offices (we've logged thousands) to postcards and flyers and door-to-door canvasses. We've been all around the state at festivals and fairs and have more signed petitions of support for this bill than we'd ever anticipated. Now as we RHAPP up the summer campaign (sorry, couldn't resist the pun!) we will be moving into our next phase for the fall. We'll need all our activists and volunteers to ensure the campaign moves full steam ahead. Get your final summer reading in, take one last stroll to get ice cream, and take one last dip in the pool. Get ready to send more emails, to collect more postcards, and to get knocking on even more doors. The days may technically get shorter as fall rolls around, but we'll be working even longer. For Choice,
Kelli Conlin |
NY Politics: Five Reasons Why NY Needs a Roe of its Own We are working like mad to spread the word about the Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act(RHAPP), and thought it would be useful (and fun) to give you some talking points when, say, a friend or colleague says a bill to protect the future of abortion access isn't that necessary for our oh-so-pro-choice state. Here goes... 1. We can no longer count on the Supreme Court. When the Supreme Court of the United States decided to uphold a ban on a safe type of abortion with no exception to the woman's health, we knew that we could no longer trust the judicial system to make decisions that protect our right to choose. So it's time to take matters into our own hands and secure choice at home. 2. Other states are in trouble. Twenty-one states have a fully anti-choice legislature, and 23 states have unconstitutional and unenforceable bans that could outlaw abortion as early as the 12th week of pregnancy, with no exception to protect a woman's health We need New York to remain a safe haven for women in our state and for those who can't access abortion care in their own states. 3. New York does have an anti-choice movement. See the image below. That's a billboard that is currently up in upstate New York. Shocking, we know. But the anti-choice movement in New York is hard at work, and it's our job to keep active in response. 
4. Even the best birth control access won't prevent all unintended pregnancies. Even if we achieve full, universal access to birth control (and we are still a long ways away), some women will still face unintended pregnancies and will still need to access safe and legal abortion care. And the RHAPP Act will secure that. 5. Doctors need support. Believe it or not, our current abortion law lies in New York's penal code. Medical professionals need to be given the amount of respect and assurance necessary to provide safe and legal abortions. The RHAPP Act will put our state's abortion law into the healthcare code where it belong s. We hope this has shed some light on as to exactly why the RHAPP Act is that necessary. (Hey, at least it wasn't something cheesy like a RHAPP rap.) Read more here about the RHAPP Act and how you can get involved.
EC Update: No Woman Left Behind One year ago this week, the FDA announced that it was approving emergency contraception (EC) for over-the-counter status. Yay for progress, but boo for the fact that three groups of women failed to squeeze through the OTC EC cracks: - women under 18
- undocumented women
- low-income women who can't afford the drug and whose Medicaid plan doesn't cover it
Let's talk about group three. On average, EC can cost up to $40 per dose. Imagine what a woman who earns minimum wage thinks about this. Forty bucks can be a day's worth of work, meaning that week's groceries or an electric bill. In other words, it's more than likely she doesn't even see it as an option. Most state Medicaid programs still require women to obtain a prescription to get coverage for the cost of emergency contraception. Therefore, women on Medicaid either have to pay full price for the over-the-counter EC or are forced to get a prescription and waste time they don't have. This makes us mad. How could lawmakers assume that a woman earning minimum wage can just dish out this money without a worry in the world? Let's weigh the options here – possibly get pregnant, or have their electricity turned off...hmmmm... Let's use a little logic, people. So in response, the National Institute for Reproductive Health (an organization that was created out of NARAL Pro-Choice New York to address reproductive rights concerns across the country) has released a memo, "Expanding Medicaid Coverage for EC on the State Level."This serves as a kind of "how-to" guide for advocates who want to increase access to EC for low-income women in their state. It’s certainly a start. Read it, get your advocacy on, and spread the word.
Choose Wisely: Your Pro-Choice (End of) Summer Reading List  It's been one year since our last pro-choice summer reading list, but we're back and ready to bring you some goodies for the remainder of your summer reading pleasure; whether you're at the beach, on a pool float, hanging in your yard or snuggled up in bed, these books will do you well. (And do us well too; we receive a small portion of the proceeds if you buy the books via the links below!) We've actually asked all of the NARAL Pro-Choice New York staff for their favorite pro-choice reads, and this is what we found:
A history book that's actually fun. "Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America" by Rickie Solinger This book is like the "A People's History of the United States" for the reproductive rights movement; in other words, it gives us a raw history of choice in the U.S., and the missing pages that you wouldn't normally find in your typical repro rights book. A highly suggested read. A positive book on religion and choice (for a change) "Sacred Choices: The Right to Abortion and Contraception in Ten World Religions" by Daniel C. Maguire While most assume that most religion has served as an impediment to reproductive health and rights, the author of this book takes on the pro-choice elements that exist in religion. He argues that religions have chosen to focus only on the anti-choice aspects of their tradition, when there are a number of traditional components that support family planning, contraception and even abortion that contemporary religions choose to omit. A Da Vinci Code of Choice, if you will. A straight-up fun pro-choice read "The Group" by Mary McCarthy The fabulous Mary McCarthy's famous novel is about a group of college friends experiencing the real world in the 1930s. Between their struggles with access to birth control, a husband's icky objection to breastfeeding, and general social restrictions on what "ladies" should or should not do, this is a great pro-choice fiction book. It's funny, witty and clever while taking on serious issues at the same time. And we like that. Not just a book, but a whole author to read! All books written by Marian Keyes As adverse to or thrilled that you might be about the "chick lit" phenomena, Marian Keyes is an Irish (and somewhat of a) chick lit author who doesn't write strictly about reproductive rights issues, but she certainly addresses them. In her book Angels, the main character has an abortion, in which she discusses what it meant to have an abortion in a nation where the procedure was illegal. She is also publicly pro-choice and serves as a role model for other Irish women. For that, we give her serious kudos. We hope you enjoyed the list, and will enjoy some of these reads for the rest of your summer! | A Few Choice Words Staff | Vanessa Valenti, Writer
Mary Alice Carr, Editor |
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