(this post is part of the Stand Up For Choice BlogBurst)

I support the March for Women’s Lives

on April 25, 2004 in Washington DC

Stand up for choice!

Here’s three ways you can support the March for Women’s Lives, even if you can’t be there yourself:

1. Show your support for the March by putting a post like this one on your own website. Be sure to add your own thoughts on why you support the March and a woman’s right to choose!

2. Take those thoughts and turn them into a letter to your representatives in Congress. (Make sure you mention your support for the March, and make sure they know you’ll be voting pro-choice in November.) Then, take that letter and turn it into a letter to the editor of your local newspaper!

3. Make a small contribution to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: support the effort to protect choice as a right and to make it a reality.

Why?

I stand with the March for Women’s Lives because American women’s right to choose is under threat. Four more years of anti-choice politics will mean an unprecedented opportunity to chip away at the landmark victory of Roe v. Wade—and may even mean the opportunity to overturn it. That cannot stand. Everyone has the right to control their own bodies, and for women that right doesn’t stop at the uterine wall; a government that bans abortion is forcing women to continue pregnancies against their will—and that is nothing less than legalized slavery. While men in government offices play at politics, women will hurt and women will die because men in government uniforms think they have the right to tell them what to do with their own bodies.

A generation ago, women (and the men who stood with them) rose up, organized, and agitated to win the right to choose. This weekend, we will rise up again. Together, we can win again. And we will.

Onward!

We will make ourselves heard. We will support pro-choice work in our communities. Our struggle is here. Our time is now.

P.S.: Don’t forget to spread the word: if you support the March and its goals, rip off this post for your own website. Do it! Now!

Martin Striz (of plausible thoughts fame) asked me an excellent question in an e-mail the other day: are there any emblems or other efforts to show support for the March for Women’s Lives this weekend if you can’t go yourself? (The March websites have some pages on ways to support the March if you can’t make it, but they all focus on things that you could have done a few months ago to help publicize the March.)

Well, it’s late in the game, but we are working on Internet time here, so here’s my idea. (I’m just tossing it out to see if it sticks; feel free to rip it off, alter it, deride it, ignore it, or whatever seems best.)

If you’re not going to the March this weekend—or even if you are—why not show your support by participating in a [BlogBurst][] in support of the March and abortion rights?

We can (1) get out the pro-choice message and bring it front and center in political discussion, (2) raise the visibility of the March even more through Google and political weblogs, and (3) take our support out into the world—and help others do the same—with letters to the editor, letters to our representatives, and contributions to pro-choice organizations. Here’s the format (you can see a SAMPLE POST here):

1. A post to your web page headed up by a link back to this BlogBurst:

   (this post is part of the Stand Up For Choice BlogBurst)

   and either the March emblem:

   

   or this one:

   

2. Link to the March for Women’s Lives website.

3. Offer three ways to support the March for Women’s Lives even if you can’t be there yourself:

   Here’s three ways you can support the March for Women’s Lives, even if you can’t be there yourself:

   1. Show your support for the March by putting a post like this one on your own website. Be sure to add your own thoughts on why you support the March and a woman’s right to choose!

   2. Take those thoughts and turn them into a letter to your representatives in Congress. (Make sure you mention your support for the March, and make sure they know you’ll be voting pro-choice in November.) Then, take that letter and turn it into a letter to the editor of your local newspaper!

   3. Make a small contribution to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: support the effort to protect choice as a right and to make it a reality.

4. If you’d like to follow any or all of these suggestions yourself, well, hell, it couldn’t hurt, could it?

Sound reasonable? I’ll get the ball rolling with an example post here at the RGPD. Let’s begin!