Imagine Being Sent to Jail for Doing Your Job

That’s exactly what could happen to Mary Kogut, CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri. The ideologues in control of the Missouri State Senate have threatened her with contempt and jail time for refusing to share the private, personal medical information of patients at Planned Parenthood health centers.

Mary is fulfilling a promise to Planned Parenthood patients, to protect their health and privacy, no matter what. And they are saying they are going to punish her for it. They want to punish her for daring to stand up against petty politics and intimidation – for standing up for women.

We won’t let it happen. Not without a fight.

Add your name to our open letter right now to tell Missouri senators and every other extremist out there: we won’t be punished for exercising our rights, and getting the health care we deserve.

The threats against Mary Kogut are part of a coordinated attack by ultraconservative lawmakers who want to block thousands of people in Missouri from accessing critical health care and Planned Parenthood services – especially low-income women, who often have nowhere else to turn for safe, quality care they can afford.

The drive to cut women off from care – and punish them for fighting back – is rolling forward in state after state. Since the release of malicious, and now debunked, attack videos in July, there’s been an unprecedented level of attacks on reproductive rights at the state level.

Hostile politicians in more than 20 states have threatened patient care at Planned Parenthood health centers, including:

• Florida, where extreme lawmakers passed a bill that blocks access to birth control and cancer screenings, and includes Texas-style medically unnecessary restrictions on safe, legal abortion that could shutter health centers;

• Ohio, where Governor John Kasich signed into law a bill that blocks access to care at Planned Parenthood health centers, leaving thousands of people unable to access cancer screenings, infant mortality prevention programs, and other care; and

• Arizona, where the legislature is poised to pass (and the Governor will sign)  a bill that targets access to birth control, cancer screenings, STD tests, and other critical care for thousands of Medicaid patients who rely on Planned Parenthood.

The specifics of these attacks vary from state to state, but they have one heartbreaking thing in common:

Women in this country are being punished for nothing more than attempting to access the health care we’re entitled to.

State by state, extreme lawmakers are attacking women.

Our health, our rights, our privacy, and our lives are at stake.

The attacks have gone too far.

Tell them to back off.  

Add your name to our open letter now and tell extremists everywhere:

We won’t be punished – not now, not ever.

 

Tags: Planned Parenthood, State Fights, Missouri