Sign Statement on Abortion Rights Emergency in Texas

EMERGENCY IN TEXAS
STOP FORCED MOTHERHOOD
ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY

If nothing changes, on September 1st all but six abortion clinics in Texas will be closed (there were 46 in 2011).

Women will begin dying from dangerous illegal abortions. Others will be imprisoned for self-inducing abortions. Thousands more will have their lives foreclosed by being forced to bear children they do not want – shattering their dreams, trapping them in abusive relationships, and/or driving them into humiliating and dangerous poverty. Rural, poor, immigrant, and women of color will be hardest hit.

Worse, this emergency in Texas is not an isolated problem.

Hundreds of abortion restrictions have been enacted in recent years. Six states have only one abortion clinic left. Eight abortion doctors and staff have been murdered. Countless women have been shamed and humiliated.

Those driving this attack on women's most fundamental rights are deadly serious. They will not stop until all abortions have been criminalized for all women in all circumstances.

THIS MUST NOT BE ALLOWED! Forcing women to have children against their will is a form of enslavement.

Courageous people are doing important work to keep abortion available. At the same time, it must be confronted soberly: much more is needed.

What happens this summer in Texas will affect women everywhere. It is the responsibility of everyone who does not want to see women forced to have children against their will to stand up and fight. Not some time in the future, but now.

This is a time for courage. For people to defy fear, to shatter silence, and to break their isolation. To refuse to wait for politicians or courts to make our will known. To raise our voices and fill the streets, to make art and wage protest, to defend doctors and assist women, to change hearts and enlighten minds. To engage in acts of militant non-violent direct action. To call forth thousands and soon millions until we have STOPPED these attacks and DEFEATED this war on women.

We reject the view that a woman's highest purpose is to bear children. Women are full human beings with the moral, ethical and legal right to decide when and whether to be mothers.

NO MORE women denied the right to dream, the right to live full lives, the right to love, the right to decide for themselves. WE WILL RESIST!

This statement was initiated by:

Diane Derzis, owner, Jackson Women's Health Organization (last abortion clinic in Mississippi)

Carol Downer, founder of Feminist Women's Health Centers which began doing abortions in LA in 1971

Merle Hoffman, CEO Choices Medical Center which began doing abortions in New York City in 1972

Sikivu Hutchinson, author, Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars

Rev. Donna Schaper, Senior Minister Judson Memorial Church

Sunsara Taylor, writer, Revolution, initiator, End Pornography and Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women

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