Act!
Protect Pregnant Incarcerated Women2
Protect Pregnant Incarcerated Women!
Does Your State Value the Women Who Give Life?
Despite the many issues affecting women's health and lives, bills to further restrict abortion are likely to be the primary focus of your legislature's session this year. As a result of this extensive attention to this one aspect of pregnant women's lives, chances are that your state legislature will not address many other health issues of concern to pregnant women and mothers — not breast cancer nor heart disease, not the lack of health insurance for millions of women and children nor the lack of access to mother-friendly childbirth. Here are some suggestions for action you and your state can take to ensure that policies to advance a culture of life, values the women who give that life:
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South Dakota - Yes There is More That You Can Do
Are you concerned about what is happening in South Dakota? Take a look at the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families: http://www.sdhealthyfamilies.org/
Learn what is happening with efforts to stop South Dakota's ban on abortion and what South Dakota activists have to say.
You can also check out Staphanie Millman's cartoon.
Stephanie Millman's cartoon, http://minimumsecurity.net/toons2006/6034.htm
addresses a key underlying issue in South Dakota's new ban on abortion -- the conviction that women are not capable of making informed decisions about their reproductive and family lives. The South Dakota bill, outlawing all abortions except where a woman and her doctor can prove that her life is at risk, came out of a South Dakota legislative task force.
Whatever one feels about the morality of abortion, it is clear that key questions posed by the taskforce, including whether or not abortions are voluntary and informed in America today, are designed to and have the effect of creating doubt about pregnant women and mothers as moral agents and valued members of our society. See
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If you believe that women should not lose their rights to medical decision making upon becoming pregnant – you might want to check out the cartoon, pick up the phone and make a call to South Dakota State Senator Bill Napoli. Read about Nancy Goldstein's call to the Senator at:
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/My_dinner_with_Napoli_0329.html
If You See Something Say Something!
This section will provide a range of suggestions for activism. Not too long ago newspapers reported that some science museums were refusing to show films that mentioned evolution. Why? Because they were afraid they would be picketted by people who organizied opposition to the provision of evidence based information --even at science museums. The lesson is that organizing matters -- and we can do it too. So, as a first step, if you hear, see, read the terms "crack baby" or "meth baby," call write and speak out about how these terms are stigmatizing and without medical basis. Send copies of the letters on this website from leading scientists explaining why these terms should not be used. Tell the journalist they should be writing stories instead about the need for and the value of family treatment.
Don't worry, there is a lot more NAPW will ask you to do. But, start by refusing to stand silent in the face of misinformation and prejudice -- whether on our subjects or any others that you may care about.