February 2009 |  From the desk of Kelli Conlin, President
Believe it or not, we're already at the end of February. The New York State legislature is in full swing, getting ready to introduce the Reproductive Health Act, and the New York City Council is hammering away at passing the Clinic Access Bill, which will protect women's access to reproductive health care in the city. NARAL Pro-Choice New York has been involved at every step of the legislative process and will do everything we can to pass both bills!
Because reproductive choice goes beyond legislation, this month we launched our new six-part series of panel discussions, Choices: Achieving Reproductive Freedom for All. We kicked off the series with a successful event focusing on emergency contraception to get us ready for Back Up Your Birth Control Month in March. All next month we're organizing people across the state and the country to get involved in spreading information about and access to emergency contraception.
Here's to a successful February and an even more fruitful few months to come! For Choice,
Kelli Conlin |
Legislative Update We congratulate and welcome New York City's newest City Council member, Julissa Ferreras, who on Tuesday won the special election to replace Hiram Montserrate in Queens. NARAL Pro-Choice New York was proud to endorse Ferreras, a strong pro-choice woman committed to improving reproductive rights and health for women in the 21st District and in New York City overall.
The New York City Council will count on Ferreras's vote to pass proactive, pro-women, pro-choice legislation like the Clinic Access Bill, coming up for vote this spring. This bill will strengthen criminal laws against anti-choice protestors who harass, threaten, and intimidate patients and staff members at reproductive health care clinics. Read more here on our website.
36 Years Old and Counting The first installment of our new speaker series, Choices: Achieving Reproductive Freedom for All, took place on Wednesday night. This six-part series asks: what is true reproductive choice, and what are the conditions necessary to achieve it? The first topic we explored was emergency contraception (EC). Panelists included representatives from the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault, Harlem Health Promotion Center, Students Active for Ending Rape, the National Institute for Reproductive Health, and NARAL Pro-Choice New York. The discussion covered the facts about EC, barriers to access, education and outreach, and the serious need to make EC available for survivors of sexual assault.
In case you missed the event, or attended but can't get enough, read more about it here.
March is Back Up Your Birth Control MonthMarch is Back Up Your Birth Control Month. As you do your spring cleaning, be sure you’ve got EC in your medicine cabinet.
March is Back Up Your Birth Control month. As you do your spring cleaning, be sure you've got EC in your medicine cabinet.
If you're a college student, or know one or two, you can get involved in the Back Up Your Birth Control Campus Challenge. We're looking for individual students and campus groups to create and implement an original, educational, and creative way to raise awareness about EC on campus. You can host an EC party, write an op-ed in the school newspaper, hold an EC-related spring break event - the sky is the limit. The point is to get college students information about and access to EC. And the best idea wins $500! Come on, we can all use $500.
Choose Wisely: What NOT to BuyA video game recently hit the market that takes crude, dangerous, disgusting misogyny to a new level. The game, "RapeLay," involves players hunting down and raping a family of female characters, then forcing them to have abortions. Super Mario Brothers it is not.
On Monday, NARAL Pro-Choice New York was proud to join New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and our colleague organizations Safe Horizon and the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault in calling on all New York City merchants to refuse to carry this heinous "game." We encourage you to take similar actions across the state. Make sure this game isn't being sold in your area. If retailers are selling it, it's time to turn up the protest.
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