"We Must Keep Winning"

by Jen Nedeau · 2009-01-27 15:59:00 UTC
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On a day when President Obama dropped family-planning from the economic stimulus plan as a GOP concession and state restrictions on reproductive health continue to patronize and marginalize the movement for reproductive rights, I have to agree with NARAL President Nancy Keenan who delivered a call to action today saying, "We must keep winning."

Keenan delivered this statement at NARAL's Roe v. Wade anniversary, which also celebrated the organization's forty-years of hard work in the pro-choice movement.  Additional attendees included actress and human rights activist,  Ashley Judd, as the Mistress of Ceremonies; Keynote Speaker Cynthia Tucker, a nationally syndicated columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner; and the recently-elected Sen. Jeanne Shaheen from New Hampshire. Together these remarkable women reminded those loyal to the pro-choice movement that there is still a lot to do when it comes to both reproductive rights here in the U.S. and especially abroad in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.

With pro-life proponents energized and on the defense since the election of President Barack Obama, Keenan outlined a new agenda for the pro-choice movement to endorse and created action items for the new administration:

  1. Invest in prevention programs that reduce the need for an abortion

  2. Protect a women's access to abortion care

  3. Support healthy pregnancies

  4. Reclaim America's global leadership on reproductive health

  5. Appoint judges who are highly qualified and committed to individual rights

These agenda items are particularly important to pay attention to as family planning continues to be used as a political football, despite the fact that as of the 2008 election "72 percent of voters believed the federal government should provide funding for birth control for low-income women."

While the pro-choice movement has the most allies it has ever had in Congress in 16 years, there will always be a fight for women to have access to contraception and reproductive health. As Ashley Judd said today, "The conservatives don't want to regulate the market, but they want to regulate my uterus."

Thus, until the tug of war over women's choice ends, the mission of NARAL and other pro-choice organizations will remain.

Jen Nedeau Jen Nedeau is a media relations professional and a writer based in New York City.
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