What's Next in the Fight for Women's Reproductive Rights?

Some practical suggestions about stepping up active involvement in the fight for women's reproductive rights.

Join, get involved in, and donate to local and state organizations such as the following (I'm listing Wisconsin organizations, but you get the idea.)

Planned Parenthood Action
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin
NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin
League of Women Voters of Wisconsin
Emerge Wisconsin, which identifies, trains, and encourages women to run for office, to get elected, and to seek higher office.

Stay informed about what's happening.

Talk to others, especially other women, about what you're doing and discovering. Develop your own network of activist friends and then invite others into that network.

Show up! Whenever you can. When there's a meeting or an action, be there. And bring a friend.

Well before the next election season, sign up to learn how to help others register to vote. We will need to mobilize like never before.

Take good care of yourself and have fun. We're in this for the long run.



From Texas writer and women’s rights activist Katie Sherrod:

On the eve of the Fourth of July, we all need to remember that "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance" (usually attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but which Jefferson probably got from the statement "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance" by the Irish statesman John Philpot Curran.)

Remember, we all knew from the beginning that nothing will stop this draconian anti-abortion legislation from eventually passing in the Texas Legislature because the Rs have a majority in the House and the Rs in the Senate will not enforce the 2/3s rule in the Special Session. (I love the way the pundits keep pointing that out, as if we hadn't noticed. We women just need so much help, don't we?).The point of the protests is to fight back as hard as we can to put the Rs on notice that there will be a cost extracted for what they are doing to women.

So what happens after it passes?

Court challenges in the short term, and expanding voter registration, voter education, voter turnout in the long term. The numbers of young women and men who have been galvanized by this issue are important, and now the job is to keep them involved, engaged, and turning out. This is especially true in the Hispanic community, in which young people are much more progressive than parents and grandparents.

So Texans have their work cut out for them.

What can an outsider do? Donate to groups who are organizing this. Donate to Planned Parenthood. Donate to the Texas Democratic Party.

And pray. Pray that we have the necessary strength, courage, and stamina this will take. We can do this. We will do this.

Yes, we will.

Something in the Air

I'm still recovering from pneumonia (not fun, I assure you!), but I just have to write a short note to tell you that I feel something amazing in the air, ripples in the space-time continuum, awesome mojo from the universe. Women are waking up. Waking up to their power. Waking up to their voice.

Texas is only the beginning. Senator Wendy R. Davis and the women of Texas and the men who stand with them are pointing the way. The misogynistic laws Perry et al. intend to pass in Texas look just like laws being pushed and passed (sounds like a not-very-pleasant bodily function, doesn't it? how apt!) in states all over the country, including right here in Wisconsin. Women standing up to misogynists in power are sending a clear message: we're going to clean up this mess. We will no longer tolerate the intolerable.

I don't think, once we get going, that we'll be content to stop with restored reproductive freedom. There are plenty of other messes that need the attention of fierce, determined women and their allies willing to roll up their collective sleeves. The Supreme Court just made a huge mess of voting rights. Our environment is groaning under the weight of corporate greed. Wall Street is regulating Washington instead of the other way 'round. Big money has corrupted our government and shredded the democratic process. There's work to do, and we are the ones to do it. One inexorable step at a time.

There's a change in the air. Can you feel it? I swear I can smell it. It smells like spring, like a freshly cleaned house with all the windows open and a lovely spring breeze drifting through. We're done with misogyny. We're done with patriarchy. We're done with hate. We're done with political bullies. You've way overstepped your bounds, and we're putting you on notice. Get the hell out of the way. We are the ones we've been waiting for, and we're here to clean up the gigantic mess you've made.

Fired Up! Reclaim Women's Equality Day

Update: Rally at 4:30pm Monday, not at 1pm, as previously announced.

I don't know about you but I've had enough. I've had enough of the venomous anti-woman agenda of the Republican party, the leadership of which is more concerned about proving to the right-wing extremists controlling their party that they're really as anti-abortion as it's possible to be. It's ridiculous to call them "pro-life" because they oppose abortion even to save a woman's life. I don't know what that is, but it sure as hell isn't "pro-life." It comes closer to pro-death.

The Republican anti-woman agenda includes denying women equal pay for equal work, aggressively going after Planned Parenthood and other women's health care providers, outlawing abortion, and limiting access to contraceptives. Now all are agape at Todd Akin's supposed slip, in which he says exactly what he means, reiterating the right-wing fantasy that in cases of "legitimate" rape a woman has the magical power to "shut the whole thing down" and prevent pregnancy. The obvious implication is that if you get pregnant from rape, it isn't a "legitimate" rape. Whatever the hell that is.

Since then, Akin and every Republican running for office across the land have fallen all over themselves trying to back away from Akin's callous remarks and what they reveal: the party's deep-seated contempt for women. That's what this is really all about. Women, who apparently lie about rape and are prone to hysteria, cannot be trusted to make decisions about their own bodies.



This message is brought to you by the toxic rape culture in which we live. The message is precisely the same as that of every rapist: "You don't get to decide what happens to your own body. I do."

Rep. Akin, you are seriously mistaken. You and Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and all the other sad little members of the Republican misogynists' club. Enough of you! Over ninety years ago the women of this country rose up and fought like hell for the right to vote and the right to hold public office. In the spirit of their fight and what they achieved, we are rising up too, for the sake of our daughters and sons, for the sake of our planet, for the sake of our democracy.

In 1971, the U.S. Congress designated August 26 of each year as "Women's Equality Day." Eager as we are to acknowledge all that our foremothers accomplished, we also recognize that we have a lot more work to do to gain women full equality and the respect they deserve.

On Monday, August 27, at 1pm 4:30pm, all of you women and the men who support you, join us on the west side of the Wisconsin State capitol in Madison for "Reclaim Women's Equality Day." After we gather, we'll encircle the capitol in a live demonstration of our commitment to continue the work of our foremothers in ensuring women's equality.

You members of the misogynist party, we're putting you on notice. We're fired up, and we're not gonna take it anymore!



Update! Update! Update!
The time of the Reclaim Women's Equality Day rally has been changed to 4:30pm on Monday. Please help spread the word!