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Indybay Feature

Santa Cruz: A Pro-Choice City

by Christina Aanestad
The Santa Cruz City Council has passed a resolution declaring Santa Cruz a pro-choice city. The resolution-passed last night-is part of a larger Pro-Choice Cities Campaign, aimed at getting California and major U.S. cities to support pro-choice. The resolution came just days after the Walk for Life West Coast abortion opponents rallied in San Francisco.
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Santa Cruz is the third city in California to join the Pro-Choice Cities Campaign. Cynthia Mathews, a Santa Cruz City Council member and co-founder of Planned Parenthood in Santa Cruz, co-sponsored the resolution dubbing Santa Cruz a pro-choice city. She says the timings right.

"You have only to look at the statements made by George Bush on the Roe anniversary encouraging anti-choice activists in Washington DC. You have only to look at the hundreds of pieces of anti-choice legislation introduced throughout the country in state capitals to know that this issue is by no means resolved. Those of us who are pro-choice advocates think we are in this struggle for the long haul to protect reproductive freedom, women’s lives, women’s health and we thought it was important for the city to go on the record."

The Santa Cruz City Council's resolution is part of the Pro Choice Cities Campaign-an attempt to get cities in California to support a woman's right to choose whether to keep her pregnancy. Opponents say the pro-choice label is candy coating abortion. Dolores Meehan, is co-founder of Walk for Life West Coast, the San Francisco based organization opposed to abortion, which organizes annual rallies in the city. She says pro-choice means pro-abortion and abortion is murder.

"I think abortion overall has wreaked a lot of havoc on our country. We've aborted over 46 million children, there's over 30 million women, who have had abortions performed on them. Pro-choice has come to mean it really is for abortion. I think it's been a really poor choice and we need to come up with a better solution to meet the needs of women who are in this crisis."

Abbe Land co-founder of the Pro-Choice Cities Campaign disagrees. The Santa Monica City Council member says pro-choice begins with knowledge about women's reproductive health care, including options available during pregnancy.

"Pro-choice means giving people a choice, and it means that women have the choice to make whatever they want. If you are pregnant you will get the full array of choices- whether you choose to have a baby, whether you choose to not have a baby, what you can do to keep that baby healthy, what you can do to keep yourself healthy. Pro choice is really about choice. I do disagree. I think that is a tactic that the pro-life groups use to make it seem they are not as anti-choice as they are."

Supporters of the Pro-Choice Cities Campaign say the right to choose is still under threat. Californians saw it in Proposition 85, the Parental Notification bill that voters struck down in November. Santa Cruz’s mayor Emily Reilly, also co-sponsored the pro-choice cities resolution. She says Santa Cruz has been and will continue to be a pro-choice city.

"This is a city where we take women's reproductive rights very seriously. Especially now when a woman’s right to choose is being threatened. The proponents of Prop 73 and 85 have done us a service, because they've wakened us up and we're looking around and saying that 'yes there are those who are trying to threaten our right to choose' and we want to make sure that doesn’t' happen. "

The Pro-Choice Cities Campaign will be expanding to major U.S. cities later this year. In the Bay Area, the Pro-Choice Cities Campaign has sent letters to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, and Berkeley is expected to vote on a resolution to support the Pro-Choice Cities Campaign at its next city council meeting.


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