Impoverished, rural, women of color stripped of their rights
“If you opt out of the fight when rights are being stripped from impoverished women, rural women, women of color, women who are far away from you, but envision yourself charging in if the right wing ever comes for people like you, you’re not fighting for a principle — you’re fighting for yourself.”
This recent OpEd in the New York Times says so many things that needed to be said about the current state of abortion rights in this country.
Jackson Women’s Health Organization and it’s constant struggles are highlighted, as is the fact that in the states where abortion is most under siege and have one provider – that provider is independent. When people think about abortion rights in this country, the first thing that usually comes to mind is a big, national corporation. But the clinics that are standing tall and defying all the attacks from their local and state government officials are small and full of defiant activists. The staff of Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the people who stand outside defending it are local people helping local people. They are home grown. They are basically the “mom and pop” clinics that have done what they do for so long, it doesn’t even occur to them how monumental their efforts are.
We say all that to say – support your small, local provider. They are the ones who stand alone and mostly unnoticed. They are the ones who most need to hear words of encouragement or just a simple, “Thank You”.
