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Demand Women's Reproductive Rights

Last weekend, the US House of Representatives passed a landmark healthcare reform bill—one that massively set back women’s reproductive rights. The bill’s Stupak Amendment exceeds any other federal law in restricting women’s access to abortion. In addition to being denied abortion services in the public option, women receiving federal subsidies to purchase even private insurance plans are banned from buying plans that cover abortions.

For women, then, the Stupak Amendment means that they would actually lose reproductive health coverage that they currently have. Today, over 85 percent of employer health plans include abortion coverage. If the Stupak Amendment is retained in the final version of the bill, insurance companies will have a strong incentive to drop abortion coverage in order to participate in the new health insurance market created by the reform.

People in the United States should not be forced to choose between urgently needed healthcare reform and access to the full range of internationally recognized reproductive rights.

Send this letter to President Barack Obama, and demand that the Stupak Amendment be stripped from the healthcare reform bill.

Subject:

Your Letter:

Dear President Obama:

The Stupak amendment included in the historic healthcare reform bill passed by the House of Representatives on November 7 tramples the human rights of millions of women across the country.

In a time when we should be expanding access to necessary healthcare services, women have been shut out.  Women’s rights advocates in the US and around the world have struggled over decades to ensure that women have access to safe and affordable reproductive healthcare, including essential abortion services.

When women are denied access to abortion, their human rights are violated.  This Administration has made positive strides towards ensuring women’s reproductive rights: when you repealed the Global Gag Rule, you eliminated a ban on foreign aid to organizations that provide abortions.

That repeal was only a start, and we must continue this progress, in the US and worldwide.  We must eliminate US policies that threaten women’s lives.

The bill’s Stupak amendment has created one of the greatest threats to US women’s reproductive rights in a generation.  We strongly urge that the amendment be excluded from the Senate healthcare reform bill.

Sincerely,