Wed 5/3 @ 10AM-4PM
Protesting what is going on in Washington D.C. and calling your congressperson and senators every day are great things to do, and you should keep doing them.
But much of the damage being done to democracy, voting rights, education, access to health care, the environment, women’s rights and more is being done on a state level. And a majority of states have overwhelmingly Republican governments — including Ohio. With every statewide office held by a Republican and Republican supermajorities in both chambers of the Ohio legislature (thanks to gerrymandering, not the voters), we are seeing much more extreme and unpopular legislation than we would if it were divided more equally — as the voters vote.
Consequently, instead of job training and creation, health care, education funding, infrastructure repair, public transportation and improving the quality of public services, our legislature obsesses about abortion and guns, guns and abortion, guns, guns and abortion.
In fact, Ohio has passed more anti-choice legislation than virtually any other state, legislation which creates obstacles predominantly for non-affluent women seeking abortions, which in many cases makes this legal medical procedure impossible to access. It has voted to defund Planned Parenthood for services entirely having nothing to do with abortion. One of the programs it defunded, in fact, successfully works to reduce infant mortality among minorities. But fetuses trump born babies with this crew and with extremist anti-choice governor John Kasich.
If the environment in Columbus seems overwhelmingly hostile to women, it’s still important to make your voice heard, which is why Freedom of Choice holds its annual Roe Together Statehouse Advocacy Day. There Ohioans — both men and women — who believe that the place for government in not in women’s uteri gather at the Ohio Statehouse to learn what’s going on, what legislation is being pushed by crazy extremists like state rep. Candice Keller (R-Middletown) who attracted attention recently for comparing Planned Parenthood to the Nazi Party, and visit legislators to let them know that they don’t approve of what’s going on. There will be a training session in the morning, so you’ll know what to do and say, and you won’t be going alone!
It starts at the Columbus Athenaeum, 32 N. 4th Street, at 10am. Register here.
Columbus, OH 43215