As an organization strongly committed to justice and equity, we won’t step down now. As women privileged to have a voice, we are committed to maintaining mobilization efforts for women’s health and reproductive health. We will work to ensure that women not only have the legal right to access reproductive healthcare, but also are given equitable social circumstances to make decisions right for them. Despite the outcome of elections, and despite who is in office, we believe that women deserve better.
We believe we deserve proper representation. Half the population deserves half the representation. We deserve people in office that love all people and that respect all people’s right to exist and express themselves in any manner they choose. We call on President-Elect Trump to advocate for women’s health and reject anti-women legislation that limits or restricts women’s health access.
As residents of Pennsylvania and the Northeast, we are grateful for local and state legislators for remaining determined to advocate for women’s health. We are glad to have re-elected Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon, Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, State Rep. Lisa Borowski and State Senator Amanda Cappelletti to office. These legislators have time and time again affirmed their commitment to protecting women’s health access in the Pennsylvania State Legislature and in the U.S. House of Representatives.
We believe that a woman should have the chance to have children, that a woman should be able to safely give birth and that a woman should have access to reproductive healthcare. Women’s health is not just about abortion. As one of the leading countries in the world in many areas, we are one without equal access to healthcare.
The foster care system needs reformation. Hospitals need better reproductive healthcare. Doctors need the freedom to exercise their medical expertise. Reproductive health and women’s health are nuanced multi-faceted concepts that expand far beyond what politicians say and think.
Abortion serves as a last resort for many women leaving violent relationships, facing ectopic pregnancies, or facing near-death conditions, like sepsis, hemorrhage or cancer. It is not the government’s job to decide when these conditions are “worthy of care.”
In-vitro fertilization and infertility medication are life-expanding facets of modern medicine that have expanded women’s ability to create families. Despite misconceptions, infertility is not uncommon. Women’s bodies are not always created with the ability to have children. We believe that women should have the opportunity to create families regardless of the way their bodies were built. Women face conditions like PCOS, endometriosis and infertility that cause trouble conceiving. Fertility drugs and life-expanding medicine is not a bad thing. They should not be something the government is trying to get rid of or limit women’s access to.
Reproductive health is not just abortion. It’s time to stop listening to misconceptions and myths and listen to women’s experiences. This isn’t about politics anymore. This is about equality. It’s about rhetoric, it’s about the words we use, it’s about representation. Despite the outcome of any election, we will continue to use our privilege to advocate for all people.
