Stand Up for Abortion and Birth Control

Saturday, January 21 in San Francisco, the Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights and the California National Organization for Women presented a West Coast Rally for Reproductive Justice. VIDEO of speeches here and here. 

On the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, women's fundamental right to abortion is hanging by a thread.

• Nearly 90% of U.S. counties have no abortion provider.
• 2011 saw the greatest number of restrictions passed at the state level parental notification laws, mandatory waiting periods, gestational bans, etc. - restricting this access even further.
• Doctors who provide abortions are hunted, terrorized and killed.
•  And the stigma and shame cast on women who get abortions is greater than ever.

But that is not all. Now, even birth control is under siege. Pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions. "Personhood" amendments seek to criminalize miscarriages and ban all contraception. And President Obama openly upheld Kathleen Sebelius's unprecedented decision to overrule the FDA and block over-the-counter distribution of Plan B (emergency contraception).

If 2011 marked an unprecedented escalation in the assault on women's lives, 2012 must mark the launch of unprecedented resistance!

"Whether through legislation or through extra-legal terror, whether from the Republicans' assault or the Democrats' capitulation, forcing women to have children against their will is immoral and enslaving.  We must rely on ourselves - not politicians - to defeat these attacks and win abortion on demand and without apology." - Sunsara Taylor, member of World Can't Wait's national advisory board

A woman who cannot decide for herself when and whether to have a child is not free. Forced motherhood is female enslavement. And when women - half of humanity - are not free, then no one is free.