A Letter to Our Supporters

To our friends, colleagues, supporters, and partners,

I wanted to share some news with you.

On June 28, the NARAL Pro-Choice America Board of Directors voted to move forward with a plan to fully nationalize the organization and eliminate their support for all eleven state-level affiliate organizations, including NARAL Massachusetts.

I wanted you to hear from me directly about this and what it means for our organization. You have supported us because you believe in our organization’s ability to protect and expand abortion access and reproductive freedom in Massachusetts and across this region.

Our mission and our ability to do that work will not change.

The fact is our organization already operated largely separate from our national organization. So while this may eventually impact our name, it won’t impact our work. In fact, it may give us an opportunity to enhance it and expand it. We know that the key to protecting and expanding abortion access is local, organized, grassroots advocacy. We know that, because it’s what we do. NARAL Massachusetts is proud to have passed six pieces of legislation in the last four years, including the ROE Act just last year.

The progress we’ve made together continues to be opposed at every turn, and organized efforts to reverse the ROE Act began the moment the bill passed.

We are at a crisis moment for abortion access and reproductive rights. We cannot take a step back, and we cannot move away from the kind of local, grassroots organizing that has proven so successful.

It’s why we are so committed to continuing our mission here in Massachusetts.

The change to the national organization will not be immediate — the national group has given an 18-month window for this to happen. The organization has asked us to keep an open mind to ways that we can continue to partner together — and we will have those conversations in the coming months.

In the meantime, our work at the local level continues on. The fight to protect abortion access has never been more urgent. And we are going to win that fight.

I will continue to update you on our progress in the coming weeks and months.

As always, thank you so much for your partnership and support. We could not do this without you.

With Gratitude,
Rebecca Hart Holder
Executive Director
NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts