You Can't Manage Your Career if You Can't Plan Your Family

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Our Constitutional rights are at stake

Here we are, the destination so many of us have feared for so long. To be once again at the mercy of our reproductive cycles. The Supreme Court is taking up an abortion rights case this term. That means our Constitutional right to be free of the government’s intrusion into our most intimate of decisions - whether to bring a pregnancy to term or not - is under as great a threat today than at any time since the Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973.

I’m old enough to remember friends’ dangerous back-alley abortions. I also remember the day my mother told me about my grandmother’s illegal abortion after three of her children under the age of two died, one of them my mother’s twin sister. Gramma couldn’t bear another infant death at a time when one in ten children died before their fifth birthday.

That’s the thing. No one and certainly not the State or Federal government can know why a woman wants or needs to terminate a pregnancy.

The fight of our lives

The case the Supreme Court has taken up for review asks a narrow question ~ whether requiring clinic doctors to have hospital admitting privileges imposes an undue burden on women’s reproductive rights. If the Court limits itself to that precise question, your right to terminate a pregnancy will likely not be affected. The women affected will be the ones who have always been hurt in a post-Roe v. Wade world ~ those who rely on clinics for their reproductive health rather than those who have private OB-GYNS.

But make no mistake, this case is the crack in the dike that the “pro-life” lobby has been seeking for so long.

The new conservative majority is making its decision

against a backdrop in which 29 states already have enough abortion restrictions in effect to be considered either hostile or extremely hostile to abortion rights; four states in the “extremely hostile” category also have so-called “trigger” laws on the books that would immediately ban abortion if Roe were overturned. In the first six months of 2018, 11 states enacted 22 new abortion restrictions and four states moved to impose new restrictions on providers that can receive public funds for family planning programs.

Every Woman’s Right to Choice is Threatened

Although every woman’s right to plan her family is threatened, the usual victims are up first - women too poor to afford a private physician. It would be well for us to remember the wisdom of incremental restrictions after the post-war revelation of the horrifying details of the Jewish Holocaust.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Join us!

What We Can Do

Earlier this year, She Negotiates decided to devote 10% of its revenues to reproductive rights organizations, some of which fight for our rights like the National Women’s Law Center and some of which provide direct aid to the women who would be most affected by a negative decision from a Court whose conservative majority includes a man credibly accused of sexual assault ~ the Yellowhammer Fund, part of the National Network of Abortion Funds.

I once again invite my readers to donate to the rights organizations of their choice. I also invite women-owned businesses to pledge a certain percentage of their revenues or profits to fight the fight of our lives like She Negotiates has.

We’ve chosen five reproductive justice organizations as the recipients of our donations here. There are, however, dozens to choose from. Nearly all of these organizations permit monthly contributions from as low as $5/month. Organizations who bury themselves in statistics have calculated that “the cost of raising a child today is $233,610 – excluding the cost of college.” Five dollars a month for the next eighteen years is just a little over $1,000. Money incredibly well spent.

Please join us. If you’d like to be part of our Reproductive Justice campaign, we’ll create an honor roll on our Reproductive Justice to include you with a link to your business.