June Volunteer Orientation

By Brooke

We would like to send out a big thank you to everyone who came out for our second quarterly volunteer orientation last night! Attendees ate delicious pizza and received a thorough review of the current status of reproductive rights in Virginia and in the US. We have seen so many attacks on women’s health this year, from bans on private insurance coverage of abortion to attempts to defund Planned Parenthood. These attacks prove again that the people we have in office play a crucial role in shaping the future of women’s health inVirginia.

That is why the 2011 statewide elections inVirginiaare critical. Last night was one opportunity to stay involved and informed.

To show our volunteers some tools for working on issues, Jenny from the Virginia Civic Engagement Table  stopped by to give a talk on virtual phone banking, which allowsVirginia to get involved from home.

Virginia voters should remember that the primary will take place on August 23 and Election Day is November 8. For information on registration, polling locations, and more, please visit the Virginia State Board of Elections. For information on candidates and redistricting, see VPAP.org. To see how state elected officials voted in the recent session, please reference our 2011 Legislative Scorecard and be on the lookout for our next Virginia Political Pro(choice)files blog post!

If you are interested in volunteering and/or have not yet signed up for our Volunteer e-Newsletter please contact Joey Richards. Our next Volunteer Orientation will be held in September.

League of Young Leaders Kick-off Tomorrow Night!

Are you pro-choice and under 35? If so, we’d love to see you at our League of Young Leaders kick-off event tomorrow night, Thursday, October 7 in Arlington!

As a woman’s right to choose and ability to access reproductive health care comes under increasingly fierce attack on both the federal and state levels, it is vital that young members of the pro-choice community (you!) show just how much that right matters. That’s why our national organization, NARAL Pro-Choice America, has been asking people under 30 to share why they believe in the right to choose. (If you submit your answer by the end of the day today, October 6, your response could be featured on the NARAL Pro-Choice America website and in our print publications!)

Young pro-choice people also have an opportunity to do more on the local level to protect reproductive freedom here in Virginia. Join our League of Young Leaders and see what an important difference you can make!

The League of Young Leaders (LoYL) is the new young professionals group of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia. Its mission is to engage and develop young leaders for the purpose of strengthening and supporting our work through advocacy, outreach, and philanthropy. LoYL is open to anyone ages 21-35 who supports the mission of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia and wants to be part of a unique, proactive group of pro-choice young people. Future LoYL activities will include happy hours, house parties, campaign events, advocacy trainings, lobby days, and networking events.

The event details are below – we hope you can join us!  If you can’t make it tomorrow night but want to keep in touch and find out how you as a young person can get more involved in NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia’s work, follow LoYL on Facebook or Twitter or email loyl@naralva.org.

League of Young Leaders (LoYL) Kickoff Happy Hour & Pro-Choice Trivia Night

When: Thursday, October 7th, 6pm-9pm

Where: The Front Page, 4201 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA (One block from the Ballston Metro station; street and garage parking available nearby.)

What: Join us in kicking off LoYL, NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia’s new young professionals group!  A $10 donation to NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia entitles you to exclusive drink and appetizer specials. Relax after work with trivia and drinks in the private back bar and meet other young people who care about protecting reproductive freedom in Virginia.  Trivia will be played in teams of up to 4, and the winning team will have the opportunity to talk with NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia Executive Director Tarina Keene over coffee. There will also be a raffle with great prizes including a private wine tasting, a spa gift certificate, and Front Page gift certificates!

Facebook event page here. Please email loyl@naralva.org with questions or to RSVP!

[Thanks to our intern Brett for her work on this post!]

Talking about Choice- and Books!

*Many thanks to our interns for planning the book club and to Amber for her write-up below:

“So much about abortion is kept secret and hidden. What the abortion entails, for starters. How women are counseled and treated inside a clinic. How a medical career like mine is marginalized and exposed, and what effects that marginalization has on a doctor’s family life, personal safety and daily routine.

For me to be visible and exposed is dangerous. Abortion doctors have been murdered by fanatics who call it justifiable homicide. Clinics and doctor’s homes have been bombed and burned. The danger is very real. Besides, in telling my story I am forced to reveal my mistakes, my regrets, my failures to follow rules.”

So writes Susan Wicklund in an essay describing her decision to write This Common Secret, a memoir spanning her life as a woman who experiences a terrible abortion, a single mother who works her way through college and medical school, and an abortion provider and pro-choice activist that risks her life to protect women’s rights.

Yesterday, a group of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia supporters met to discuss the first half of Dr. Wicklund’s book. It was a discussion that was thought provoking and inspiring. Our group was diverse—we had teenagers and twenty-somethings and parents of teenagers and twenty-somethings, we originated from across the country and even the world, and we grew up in very different communities and families with very different beliefs which resulted in a discussion that we all contributed unique perspectives to and all learned something from.

This Common Secret is a powerful book. It moves beyond the political aspects of abortion and focused on the personal aspects—the women, all so different, who have abortions; the doctors, whose motivations and actions vary widely; the protestors, some of whom pray quietly, others who shout and yell, and still others who find it acceptable to stalk, threaten, and physically attack providers. Even more interesting are the everyday people who are not affiliated with any movement or activism—the man who is always on the same commuter flight, the neighbor who is quietly pro-life but appalled at the harassment Dr. Wicklund suffers, the utility employee who is asked to bend the rules to help Dr. Wicklund protect herself, and, most powerfully, the Doctor’s own grandmother.

The book reminds us how important our work is to real people when sometimes we get lost in the politics. The book reminds us how much providers sacrifice. The book reminds us how common the secret of abortion is and how powerful talking about it can be.

The discussion led us to a current discussion of abortion that just aired on Friday Night Lights. If you’re interested in reading more about that, check out the NARAL Blog for Choice and the New York Times article!

Our next meeting is on July 25 in Arlington from 3-5 pm. We’ll discuss the book in general, focusing on the second half, and will have some local activists there to share their experiences with us. Email Claire@naralva.org to rsvp and we’ll send you the details.

And, one of our fabulous interns also compiled a list of just a few other ‘Choice-related’ books that are well worth a read:

• Abortion & the Politics of Motherhood
• Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict
• The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service
• How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics and the War on Sex
• The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade
• The Vagina Monologues
• Abortion and Life
• Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America
• Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe v. Wade
• The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women -
• Back Rooms: Voices from the Illegal Abortion Era
• Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex
• Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, and Abortion
• The Making of Pro-life Activists: How Social Movement Mobilization Works

Pro-Choice Book Club!

We’ll be meeting TWICE during the month of July to discuss This Common Secret by Susan Wicklund, an important and powerful account of her journey as an abortion doctor.

—> On July 11, we’ll meet in the private back room at Northside Social in Arlington at 3 pm
—> On July 25, we’ll meet in Arlington Central Library’s second floor discussion room at 3 pm.

Feel free to come having read the whole book, half the book, or none of the book – just be ready to talk and build community with other Virginians interested in choice!

RSVP to our community outreach intern by emailing Claire@naralva.org.

Here’s what the Washington Post has to say about This Common Secret:
“Wicklund tells riveting stories about patients she has treated during nearly 20 years as an abortion provider. Her book is effective, perhaps that’s because she’s not claiming to prove one objective truth, just conveying her own experience—and because she has good, multifaceted stories to tell. Clear-eyed depictions of abortion services, and the close-up descriptions of the women Wicklund has treated, are the source of the book’s power. And Wicklund’s sensitivity to the fraught nature of abortion, as some women experience it, makes her stories of the damage wrought by the “antis,” as she calls them, more credible and vivid.”

Check out author Susan Wicklund speaking about her book in this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nAvp2Uf9hM

You can buy the book from Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/This-Common-Secret-Journey-Abortion/dp/158648480X

And this is our group’s event page!
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=139184056091939&ref=ts

Hope to see you this Sunday at 3 pm!

Claire & the NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia Team

And the Crisis Pregnancy Center Road Tour Comes to Burke

Here's a flier for the CPC directly across the street from George Mason University. This flier very intentionally misleads women to believe this is a medical facility offering unbiased counseling, STI testing and pregnancy tests.

We’re continuing on in our Crisis Pregnancy Center Road Tour and made a stop yesterday in Burke (photos to follow shortly!) We were invited to present to Burke area residents by one of our wonderful members who invited us into her home.

We were lucky to be joined by not only our hosts, but several  fellow Virginians seeking to learn more about these deceptive facilities in their own communities, as well as 100% Pro-Choice Champion, Delegate Eileen Filler-Corn, who represents the 41^st District in Virginia.

NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia’s Deputy Director, Emily Polak, presented the findings of NARAL’s year long investigation into CPC’s in Virginia revealing a disturbing trend of misinformation being provided to women seeking help. In the investigation, we discovered three crisis pregnancy centers in the Burke area (Fairfax and Annandale)that give false information to women: Assist Crisis Pregnancy Center, Life Choices Resource Center, and SLM Pregnancy Help Center.

Given that we were just down the road from George Mason University, the attendees had a great conversation about making sure George Mason students know about the deceptive CPCs in their community. Most importantly, we’re hoping to work with George Mason’s health center in the near future since they currently refer students worried about an unintended pregnancy to crisis pregnancy centers!

Again, let us say that no matter how someone feels about abortion, we think we should all be able to agree on the fact that all women- all Virginians- deserve real information about their reproductive health in order to make educated decisions. And it’s not helping anyone when these fake clinics tell women that condoms have holes, much like our investigators heard at the CPC in Annandale when they were told that ”STD germs go right through the holes in condoms.”