The Quickie: Abortion Rights Voters Secured the Senate Victory
For Immediate Release: Nov. 14, 2022
Welcome to “The Quickie” — Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s daily tipsheet on the top health care & reproductive rights stories of the day. You can read “The Quickie'' online here.
In today’s Quickie: Abortion rights voters secured the Senate victory, KY Supreme Court to hear oral arguments on state’s abortion bans tomorrow, and Raíz director talks reproductive justice!
ACTION FUND PRESIDENT: ABORTION RIGHTS VOTERS SECURED THE SENATE VICTORY: This weekend, voters reelected reproductive rights champions Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (NV) and Mark Kelly (AZ), solidifying a Senate majority that will protect reproductive health and rights. Attention now turns to Georgia, where a runoff election in early December will determine the final Senate seat in play:
“Voters knew what was at stake in this election,” President of Planned Parenthood Action Fund Alexis McGill Johnson said. “They defied the historical headwinds and the political pundits and showed up to vote for reproductive freedom. These voters ensured that we will have a Senate majority that believes in our right to make decisions about our bodies, lives, and futures, and will stop a nationwide abortion ban in its tracks. But we’re not done yet. Planned Parenthood advocacy and political organizations are working tirelessly to ensure ‘pro-choice pastor’ Raphael Warnock returns to the U.S. Senate so he can continue his work to expand access to health care in Georgia and across the country. Freedom wins and the fight continues.”
Read the full release in English and Spanish.
TOMORROW: KENTUCKY SUPREME COURT TO HEAR ORAL ARGUMENTS ON STATE’S ABORTION BANS: Tomorrow, the Kentucky Supreme Court will hear arguments on the state’s two abortion bans — exactly one week after abortion advocates defeated the state’s proposed anti-abortion ballot measure. The two abortion bans, a total ban and a six-week ban, have been in effect since August 2, depriving Kentuckians of access to vital health care for over three months.
The trial court previously entered a temporary injunction, which was stayed by the Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court of Kentucky refused to reinstate it. The plaintiffs, including Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky and EMS Women’s Surgical Center, argue that the bans violate the state’s constitutional rights to privacy, bodily autonomy, and self-determination.
Watch the arguments at 10 a.m. EST on the livestream here. Read more about the litigation here and here.
RAÍZ DIRECTOR DISCUSSES REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE ON MODERN IMMIGRANT PODCAST: Raquel Cruz-Juarez, director of Raíz and Latinx campaigns at Planned Parenthood, joined the Modern Immigrant podcast to discuss the impact of Roe on Latino immigrants. Raquel shared her own experiences growing up in Guatemala, and how that has informed her 10-year career at Planned Parenthood. She highlighted the difficulties of navigating cultural, language, and economic barriers to reproductive health care, and emphasized the importance of reproductive justice:
“Raiz is in 20 states, as of right now 17 states have abortion bans in effect. We know that Latinx people and immigrants exist in every single state in the United States. That means in one of those states, there is an immigrant person who’s pregnant who is going to have a barrier accessing health care. We think back to Roe v. Wade and this was a really monumental case, but it was never enough.”
“We can have an abortion clinic down the street from me. But if there’s not a bus route for a person on the other side of town to come to it, that means that access to abortion is not available for that person. And that’s reproductive justice, being able to raise our family how we want to, to have a family how we desire, taking into account all of these other environmental markers and who we are.”