The Quickie: "We Have To Build A Plan From '24 to 2040"
For Immediate Release: Dec. 20, 2023
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: Alexis McGill Johnson reflects on her journey and the future of abortion access and Florida's ballot initiative petition surpasses targeted number of signatures.
“WE HAVE TO BUILD A PLAN FROM ‘24 TO 2040”: Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood Action Fund president and CEO, joined actress, director, producer, and activist Sophia Bush on the podcast Work in Progress to talk about her journey as an activist, the attacks on sexual and reproductive health care since Dobbs, and the fights at the state level to win abortion access back at the ballot. Alexis highlighted upcoming ballot initiatives, including in Florida and New York, to win back and preserve abortion rights.
“What’s most important for us to understand that the majority is on our side. The question is what do we with that going into 2024? Knowing that we have six ballot initiatives that are incredibly important, that reproductive rights champions up and down the ballot are going to be engaging in…We know that we have seen consistently that abortion is on the ballot, freedom wins.”
Alexis also highlighted the recent cases of Kate Cox and Brittany Watts, and how their lives have been deeply impacted due to state abortion bans and restrictions.
“Bringing to light what is happening to Brittany Watts…when you lose a constitutionally protected right, the criminalization of pregnancy outcomes, particularly among Black and other women of color, who are often over-policed and they are more vulnerable, and we have to see all of us as how we are being impacted, and disproportionately impacted by these bans.”
Listen to the episode here.
FLORIDIANS PROTECTING FREEDOM CRUSH PETITION GOAL: On Tuesday, Floridians Protecting Freedom (FPF) — the campaign to amend Florida’s constitution to ensure abortion rights — announced that they had surpassed their petition collection goal. The campaign has submitted 1.4 million signatures to the Board of Elections, which has until February 1 to validate petitions. As of December 19, the Florida Board of Elections had validated more than 753,000 signatures of the required 891,523.
“Floridians have shown that they want to see this initiative on the ballot,” said FPF campaign director Lauren Brenzel. “We’re confident we’re going to submit enough petitions to get on the ballot.”
The campaign should feel great: that petition total includes at least 200,000 signatures from registered Republicans, further proving that reproductive freedom transcends party lines. The field effort was boosted by a strong grassroots volunteer program that exceeded goals, collecting over 200,000 signatures across the state.
Read more at the Tampa Bay Times and Florida Politics.