Dear Friend,

This is my first e-news as the Program Director for NARAL Pro-Choice Montana. Hopefully, you’ve heard from me on Facebook, through phone banks, or our quarterly membership newsletter.

The leaves are changing and the temperature is dropping, which means summer is officially over. But here at NARAL Pro-Choice Montana we have been so busy that we hardly noticed the changing seasons. Between traveling to conferences, organizing fair booths and public outreach events, holding campus kick-off events with Students for Choice and of course, fighting another personhood initiative, our schedules are full.

We’ve got a lot of exciting things going on throughout the fall - including some great volunteer opportunities!

Thanks for all you do to protect choice in Montana,

 

Alexandra Corcoran
Program Director

In this issue:

• Another Attempt to Rewrite our Constitution
• Back to School: Campus Organizing
• Volunteer of the Month
• Anti-Choice Activists Target Montana Providers
• In the News

They’re back! Another Attempt to Rewrite our Constitution

As you may have already heard, the “Montana Pro-Life Coalition” gained approval to begin collecting signatures for yet another backdoor attempt to strip away our right to privacy.

Proponents of the so-called “personhood” initiative have until next June to gather nearly 49,000 signatures to put CI-102 on the November 2010 ballot. 

Montana is one of several states that have been targeted for “personhood” ballot initiatives. These measures seek to ban all access to abortion care and threaten access to birth control, in vitro fertilization, and stem cell research. Montanans don’t need politicians getting involved in private medical decisions that women make every day in regards to their reproductive health.

Check out this story for more information about the “personhood” proposal.

Back to School: Campus Organizing

Now that it’s fall, our Students for Choice groups are back in action. Alex spent the second half of September traveling around the state, recruiting campus organizers and meeting with Students for Choice groups. Our Students for Choice campus groups are a huge asset in our communities - organizing in Billings, Bozeman, Missoula and Kalispell. While we are based in Helena, our campus chapters offer us a way to reach out to communities across the state and build new pro-choice leaders. NARAL Pro-Choice Montana has organized on college campuses for the past six years.

STUDENTS MAKING HEADLINES: NARAL Pro-Choice Montana’s Students for Choice chapter at the University of Montana passed a resolution through the Associated Students of the University of Montana opposing CI-102, the “personhood” ballot initiative. Read all about it! The students made the front page of their student paper.

For more information about Students for Choice, check out our website.

Congratulations! Volunteer of the Month: Susan Russell

October’s volunteer of the month is Susan Russell. Susan has been a long-time attendee at NARAL Pro-Choice Montana’s volunteer nights and is always willing to lend a helping hand. Susan first got involved with volunteering within the choice community as a clinic escort after the Helena Planned Parenthood clinic was set on fire in the 1990s. Susan says her primary motivation for volunteering is to remind young women everywhere how valuable our right to choose is by setting a good example. It was not that long ago, she notes, that women didn’t even have access to information about reproductive health care, and it’s important that young women don’t take for granted those rights. Thanks to people like Susan, we are able to spread our pro-choice message and ensure that private medical decisions remain between a woman and her doctor, and not politicians in Helena.

Thanks, Susan, for all your hard work!

Anti-Choice Activists Target Montana Providers

For 40 days, between September 24 and November 1, anti-choice activists will target Planned Parenthood clinics in Great Falls and Helena as well as All Families Health Care in Kalispell. NARAL Pro-Choice Montana is looking for advocates who would help us demonstrate that we stand in solidarity with our clinics and providers.

If you are interested in writing a letter to the editor or working with us in other ways to show support for reproductive rights in these communities, please contact Alex to find out how you can help.

In the News

A New Push to Define ‘person’, and to Outlaw Abortion in the Process

Abortion Foes Seek to Amend State Constitution

ASUM Passes Resolution Favoring Women’s Rights

Students Indulge While Soaking Up all that is Available at Welcome Feast

Ellen Goodman, A question of women’s health and equality