Press Release for Anti-Stupak-Pitts Protest SAturday

[emma.goldman]

Press Release

For Immediate Release

Florida National Organization for Women



November 30, 2009



Contact: Donna Slutiak, FLNOW President

1-800-299-1710

www.FLNOW.org

Email: president@flnow.org





NOW Hosts Rusty Gordon Memorial Protest Against Abortion Ban


The Florida National Organization for Women (FLNOW) will host a protest opposing the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which forbids both the government and private insurers from paying for abortions under proposed health care reforms. The protest will be held at the at the West Palm Beach office of Senator Bill Nelson, located at 413 Clematis Street, Ste 210
West Palm Beach, FL 33401, on Saturday December 5, 2009 at 10:30 a.m.



The rally is planned to honor the memory of feminist leader Rusty Gordon, who died Oct. 27. After the protest, many will gather for a celebration of Gordon’s life at 1:00 p.m. at her Haverhill, FL home.



“The Stupak amendment goes far beyond the abusive Hyde Amendment, which has been a bane to women since 1976. We cannot allow women’s health to be held hostage to the far right. The final health care bill must not have this unfair language or anything similar in it,” said Florida NOW President Donna Slutiak, who will speak at the event.



Patricia Ireland, Former NOW President, is one of the planned speakers. “We need to call President Obama and tell him not to let women's birth control & abortion coverage be cut in the name of reform,” she said. “We are pleased to be able to pay special tribute to Rusty Gordon, a longtime Florida NOW leader who loved a good protest and for all her life was eager to oppose injustice,” Slutiak said. Gordon became active in NOW soon after its founding in 1966. She founded the Whimsy Political Clearinghouse in Coconut Grove, Miami, in 1967 and, after the Stonewall uprising in 1969, was a champion of lesbian and gay rights. She was also a founder of the women’s music genre, producing her first women’s music festival in New Haven, Connecticut in 1972. A staunch supporter of bodily self-determination and reproductive freedom, Gordon is profiled in Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975, published by the University of Illinois press.



The Stupak Amendment, if incorporated into the final version of health insurance reform legislation, “will prevent women receiving tax subsidies from using their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion; prevent women participating in the public health insurance exchange, administered by private insurance companies, from using 100 percent of their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion; and prevent low-income women from accessing abortion entirely, in many cases,” according to National NOW President Terry O’Neill,



NOW calls on Senator Nelson and the rest of the Senate to pass a health care bill that respects women's constitutionally protected right to abortion, and calls on President Obama to refuse to sign any health care bill that restricts women's access to affordable, quality reproductive health care.



All supporters of reproductive freedom are invited to join the protest. For additional information or directions, please contact Florida NOW at 1-800-299-1710, or Donna Slutiak at president@flnow.org.