Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes endorses 90 candidates in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma ahead of midterm elections
For Immediate Release: Oct. 13, 2022
Today, Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes (PPGP Votes) announced a slate of candidates including long-time public servants and rising stars committed to improving the health of their constituents across Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. In the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the candidates are united by a shared goal to defend and protect fundamental rights and access to essential health care. By receiving the PPGP Votes endorsement, all candidates recognize that access to essential reproductive health care saves lives and secures futures.
View full list of candidates, HERE.
Each candidate understands the sexual health issues facing their communities and has committed to seeking solutions based in medical facts and sound research. These issues include high teen pregnancy rates, high incidence of STI’s, high maternal and infant mortality, anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, restrictions to gender-affirming care, a lack of health care providers in low-income and rural communities, and the systemic racism that especially alienates BIPOC women from their right to access health care and exercise bodily autonomy.
Statement from Kourtney Vincent-Woodbury, Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes:
“PPGP Votes endorsed candidates hold a common set of priorities vital to the health, safety, equity, and individual freedom of people in their districts. Meanwhile, anti-choice opponents have a blatant agenda to continue advancing government overreach into private life and personal health care decisions. Extremist, anti-reproductive rights politicians are out of step with voters. Polls tell us a majority of people support access to reproductive health care and if the recent vote in Kansas was any indication, by an overwhelming majority. Unless we elect the candidates endorsed by PPGP Votes, we will continue to see laws passed that threaten livelihoods, limit freedoms, and jeopardize the economic prospects of the entire region.”
The PPGP Votes endorsement reflects a commitment by these candidates to prioritize and advocate for medically accurate, inclusive, and age-appropriate information about reproduction, sex, and sexual health.
Running against PPGP Votes endorsed candidates are anti-abortion politicians who time and again use private health care decisions to score political points and serve their own personal agendas. In the last year alone, the region PPGP serves has faced multiple abortion bans, tightening restrictions on gender-affirming care, and attempts to outlaw interstate travel for health care.
PPGP Votes surveyed and interviewed candidates from across political parties in four states, then submitted this select group of candidates to its Board of Directors, which granted approval. The midterm elections will take place nationwide on Tuesday, November 8.