Cultivating Young Women Leaders in Northern CA

Women’s Health Specialists (WHS) is outraged at the erosion of the rights of pregnant people throughout the country, criminalizing them for seeking abortions and for exercising their rights to full body sovereignty. To work towards a future of hope, WHS partners with Sign4ERA’s Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) Petition Campaign to demand protection of all U.S. Citizens reproductive rights.

Developing an agency wide approach to uplift the ERA and to share information with our clients, a WHS planning committee was formed. WHS collaborated with Sign4ERA to attend national meetings to share WHS campaign project, updates on signatures and develop and community outreach approach to increase awareness and gather signatures.  

The planning committee was made up of a variety of WHS staff members and young women to bring forward the voices and ideas of all the departments working with clients and community. To create buy in from the staff and engagement, a call for a WHS ERA poster submission was released. Staff from all sites participated and developed beautiful materials that were selected and used as the WHS ERA campaign materials.

Through regular committee planning meetings the team created info graphics, social media posts, and clinic engagement with clients. The clinic purchased iPad’s so clients could add their name on site. These outlets allowed for WHS staff to talk with clients about the ERA and provide an opportunity to take action by signing their name.

Over the past 48 years, our community has stood with us as we provided comprehensive reproductive health services. On August 19th at 6:00 p.m. our Chico Clinic hosted a clinic launch of a historic drive to gather signatures for the Equal Rights Amendment. We partnered with Sign4ERA’s Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) Petition Campaign to demand protection of all U.S. citizens’ reproductive rights. We opened our clinic doors in Chico so our community members could come sign the petition beseeching Congress to formalize the ERA as the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution. This was a historic event to where individuals were able to show their commitment to ensuring reproductive rights and gender equality for every U.S. citizen.

Legal scholars are convinced that the ERA will:

• Make abortion accessible, safe and legal throughout the country

• Achieve pay equity and paid family leave

• Expand protections against sexual violence … and so much more.

ERA HER/HISTORY: The Equal Rights Amendment was introduced 100 years ago to codify gender equality. Fifty-eight years later, in 1972, the ERA was passed by the House and the Senate. While the Constitution does not stipulate time limits for ratifying amendments and the ERA itself specifies no time limits, Congress at that time placed a seven-year limit on ratification, which was then extended from 1979 to 1982. By 1982, only 35 states had passed the amendment — three states short of the Constitutional requirement of a three-quarters majority. But since that time, enough states have passed the ERA to meet that majority rule, and many legal scholars agree that the ERA can now in fact be ratified into the U.S. Constitution. Going forward, this means that Congress could potentially vote to eliminate the deadline — or it could be challenged in court. Since the Supreme Court’s disastrous 2022 Dobbs Decision ending the federal right to abortion, 14 Republican-dominated states promptly banned abortion. Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas banned abortion, with no exceptions for rape or incest. This has endangered the lives, health and freedom of women across the country —who are now under grave threat, with many women in these states already refused life-saving health care… and some even facing prison terms for attempting to control their own (or their teenage daughters’) fertility. Some may believe that the Fourteenth Amendment, passed in 1868, guarantees equal protections — but it did not, and was never intended to protect women. To end this nightmarish crisis, we urge our communities to mobilize for the ERA to ensure people of all genders in all states have the constitutionally guaranteed right to abortion and other equal rights.

Join us as we fight for our future! Act now and sign your name. Thank you for your support.

WHS 

Links:

• Join the fight! See our work here!
• Act now, sign your name!