Repro Roundup 08.09
We have made it through the 2023-24 Massachusetts formal legislative session, and have emerged with some major breakthroughs for our reproductive equity agenda! We passed several pieces of critical, groundbreaking legislation, made huge strides on other key priorities that set us up in a great position for 2025, and still have some items that we hope to see progress on in an informal session.
BIG WINS:
COMMON START FUNDING! The 2025 Fiscal Year budget makes historic investments in early child care for Bay State parents and early educators by expanding eligibility for childcare subsidies and improving pay for early educators. We’re proud to be members of the Common Start Coalition that has been fighting for these wins for families and young children.
JUSTICE FOR PARENTS! The legislature also passed the Parentage Act, affording more dignity to LGBTQ+ parents in Massachusetts by ensuring they have access to the security of a legal parent-child relationship.
EXPANDING ACCESS TO ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION! The legislature continued its annual $2 million investment in abortion access, infrastructure, and funds in the FY2025 budget. The budget also includes a standing order for over-the-counter contraceptives and prenatal vitamins, allowing patients on MassHealth to access these at no cost, without a prescription.
MAJOR PROGRESS:
MOVEMENT TOWARDS PRIVACY PROTECTIONS! The Massachusetts House advanced legislation that made progress to protect the digital privacy of reproductive health care workers and patients. With digital surveillance becoming an increasing threat in post-Dobbs America, legislation to protect our cellphone location data is a necessity. We’re fired up to come back next year and get the Location Shield Act signed into law to ban the sale of our private location information in Massachusetts.
MOMENTUM ON FULL SPECTRUM PREGNANCY CARE! For the first time, legislation eliminating cost-sharing for the full spectrum of pregnancy care received a favorable report from both the Joint Committee on Financial Services and the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing. While this bill did not make it out of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, we are proud to see how far the legislation made it this year, and we’re ready to come back next session and get it passed.
While our maternal health bill was passed unanimously by both the House and Senate, the legislature was unable to conference the two bills in the final hours of the formal legislative session. We know that there is energy and agreement amongst legislators to take bold action to address the maternal health crisis, and we remain hopeful to get this bill over the finish in an informal session.
On to this week’s headlines –
News from New England
→ Our New Hampshire Voting Guide and first Granite State Roe’d Show!
Continuing our extremely busy and energized REN summer, we hosted our first New Hampshire Roe’d Show in Concord! We had a lovely time at Teatotaller Cafe, where we debuted our brand new New Hampshire repro equity voting guide. Vote for Reproductive Equity - Now! has all of the information you need this November to be a reproductive equity voter up and down the ballot in the Granite State. With a thorough list of how every incumbent legislator voted on several priority issues, fact sheets detailing what you need to know about the state of reproductive equity in New Hampshire, organizing tools to get your community out to the polls, information on how to register to vote, and a pledge to be a reproductive equity voter, this toolkit is a first-of-its-kind comprehensive guide to electing reproductive equity candidates in the Granite State.
Make sure you check out our guide, and pledge to be a repro equity voter in November!
→ Our Endorsed Candidates in Massachusetts and Connecticut
Repro Equity Now has released endorsement slates for the state legislature in both Massachusetts and Connecticut! We are confident these are the candidates we need to elect to ensure that Massachusetts and Connecticut remain beacons for reproductive equity, and that these folks will use their office to both protect and expand access to abortion care and the full spectrum of reproductive health care. Check out our endorsed candidates for each state:
We are excited to support these candidates and ensure they have the tools to run on repro. This week, we held our first messaging training for our endorsed candidates in Massachusetts. We know that these candidates have a staunch commitment to reproductive equity, and we are happy to lend some support in crafting their message and personal narrative.
We’re so excited about these candidates – and we know you must be too! Sign up to get involved to elect our repro equity majority to the Massachusetts legislature, and make sure you make a plan to vote for repro equity in the Connecticut primary this Tuesday.
→ Childcare Funding in Connecticut and New Hampshire
Connecticut and New Hampshire both had major advancements in childcare funding this past month! New Hampshire began disbursing $15 million in funding to child care providers in the Granite State, after months of work from child care advocates. Connecticut also opened up $6 million in grant funding to early childhood education providers. As Massachusetts moves to expand eligibility for child care subsidies, we’re glad to see New England states make forward momentum on investing in childcare infrastructure.
→ Anti-Abortion Centers Deceive Patients Every Day. Here’s How We Can Fight Back.
We’re excited to share that our President, Rebecca Hart Holder, penned an op-ed for Inequality.org about Massachusetts’ public education campaign to fight back against anti-abortion centers. In the op-ed, Becca outlines how anti-abortion centers deceive patients, what challenges activists and state governments face in regulating their activities, and the innovative strategy that the Bay State used to combat these centers. We are proud to have served as the issue-experts on the Massachusetts campaign, and we’re excited to share more insight into the campaign.
→ Governor Chris Sununu Signs Three Anti-Trans Bills in New Hampshire
Unfortunately, in July, Governor Chris Sununu signed three awful anti-trans bills into law. These bills ban both referrals for and the performance of gender-affirming surgical care for minors, ban transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams, and enable parents to opt their children out of gender-inclusive education. These bills will have devastating impacts on transgender and queer youth in New Hampshire. It is critical that we elect pro-inclusivity, pro-justice, pro-repro equity candidates to the New Hampshire legislature so we can repeal these unjust, unconscionable laws.
→ Preconceived Great Barrington
We had a great time presenting Preconceived, a documentary on the dangers of anti-abortion centers, to the Great Barrington community this week. We were fortunate to be joined by Massachusetts Dept. of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Robbie Goldstein, leader of the Abortion Rights Fund of Western Massachusetts, Marisa Pizi, and local reproductive health care provider, Molly Rivest. Make sure you check out our future Preconceived screenings!
National Notice
→ A Repro Equity National Ticket!
We are so thrilled to see reproductive equity and abortion access be such a central facet of the Harris-Walz campaign. Hearing from a ticket that unapologetically says the word abortion and understands that reproductive freedom and equity – the right to abortion, assisted reproductive technologies, gender-affirming care, contraception, and maternal healthcare – are non-negotiables is giving us a renewed sense of energy. Vice President Harris has a strong record on fighting for abortion access and addressing maternal health care disparities, and Governor Walz passed one of the most rigorous abortion protection bills in the nation and has a personal history growing his family with IVF.
→ J.D. Vance Attacks Everyone Who Struggles with Fertility
J.D. Vance is saying the quiet part out loud – that the anti-abortion movement truly thinks that the purpose of all people with uteruses is to have children. Our President, Rebecca Hart Holder, shared some thoughts with Yvonne Abraham from the Boston Globe –
“Every single person in America who believes in gender equity should be having nightmares about JD Vance,” said Rebecca Hart Holder, head of Reproductive Equity Now. “This pick shines a bright light on the Republican Party’s true goal for America, and that is to make women subservient to men.”
→ New Report Shows Millions of Public Funding to AACs
A new report from Equity Forward, a watchdog group that tracks anti-abortion centers, shows that since 1995, anti-abortion states have poured over $1 billion into public funding for these deceptive, anti-abortion institutions. In the two years since the Dobbs decision alone, states have allocated nearly $500 million in public tax dollars towards anti-abortion centers. While pregnant people in states with abortion bans cannot even find in-person care in most cases, they also have to contend with deceptive, stigmatizing, and dangerous anti-abortion centers that seek to trick them and force them to continue their pregnancies.
→ Latest #WeCount Data Shows Importance of Massachusetts Shield Law
Despite the fact that abortion bans continue to grow and worsen in scope and severity – and constitute a human rights crisis, as Amnesty International declared last week – brave abortion providers continue to use creative strategies to ensure patients have options. The latest #WeCount data, which tracks abortion statistics across the country, shows that 1 in 5 abortions now take place using telemedicine care, which can help patients living in zero-access states obtain the care they need. The data also illuminates how important Massachusetts’ shield law is in protecting providers who offer this care from out-of-state prosecutions. Even outside of the borders of the Bay State, Massachusetts is leading the way nationally for protecting and expanding access to abortion care.
Get Involved!
📍MARTHA’S VINEYARD! Join us for Preconceived!
Please join Reproductive Equity Now on Martha’s Vineyard on August 13th for a screening of Preconceived, a documentary that exposes anti-abortion centers’ deceptive and dangerous agendas. We’ve brought Preconceived across New England and now we’re bringing it to Martha’s Vineyard on August 13th! Purchase tickets today.
📍MASSACHUSETTS! Phonebank for Repro Equity Now endorsed candidates!
Join us for an upcoming virtual phone or text bank for our Repro Equity Now endorsed candidates! Never made calls or texted to get out the vote before? That’s okay! We’ll train you with everything you need to know and be there to support you along the way. Sign up to join us next on Wednesday, August 14th or Sunday August 25th.
Our Resources
Need to understand your legal rights to provide or access abortion care? Reproductive Equity Now’s Abortion Legal Hotline will help connect Massachusetts-based health care providers and helpers, as well as patients obtaining care in Massachusetts, with free legal advice and resources about abortion access.
Looking for an abortion provider in your area? Our New England Abortion Care Guide allows you to search by zip code for legitimate abortion clinics near you. It even flags dangerous and deceptive anti-abortion centers to avoid at all costs.
Do you want to help advance reproductive equity in your community? Our Win & Deliver Toolkit offers policy proposals and supporting materials to serve as a starting point for municipal leaders looking to move the needle forward on reproductive equity.
Thank you so much for powering this fight. We’re grateful to have you in the movement with us.
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