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Yesterday, Venice For Change and FDL Action PAC announced "One Voice For Choice", a unique phone bank effort that will call into the districts of Democratic lawmakers who voted for the Stupak amendment. We are targeting likely voters who are pro-choice and asking them to tell their member of Congress to vote for a final health care reform bill that’s free of the Stupak ban.
The response has been tremendous. In only 24 hours, over half a dozen phone banks have popped up in my home state of California, and one in the heart of liberal Texas – Austin!
Will you volunteer to call pro-choice voters and explain that Stupak is much, much worse than any Federal law currently on the books?
Powwow points to two important posts by Pricilla Smith at Balkanization which outline just how bad Stupak is, and what is at stake (Part I and Part II).
And guess what, Ben Nelson is introducing Stupak in the Senate. And he’s threatening to filibuster the health care bill if he doesn’t get his way. Folks, this is crunch time. If we don’t hold the line in the House, Stupak could very easily become the law of the land.
Join one of the phone bank efforts already going, or if there’s not one in your district, start one of your own!
SIGN UP FOR A PHONE BANK IN YOUR AREA!
"One Voice For Choice" has phone banks set up all over California, and one in Texas. Don’t see one in your area? Sign up to host your own! Please be sure to bring your cell phone and a charger.
Saturday, December 5
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
9AM – 2PM
SIGN UP AND GET DIRECTIONS HERE
Sunday, December 6
REDONDO BEACH, CA
10AM – Noon
SIGN UP AND GET DIRECTIONS HERE
SANTA MONICA, CA
Noon – 5pm
SIGN UP AND GET DIRECTIONS HERE
Saturday, December 12
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, CA
9am-Noon
Noon-3pm
SIGN UP AND GET DIRECTION HERE
MAR VISTA, CA
Noon – 3pm
SIGN UP AND GET DIRECTIONS HERE
Sunday, December 13
SAN DIEGO, CA
12pm-2pm
SIGN UP AND GET DIRECTIONS HERE
FRESNO, CA
1pm-4pm
SIGN UP AND GET DIRECTIONS HERE
AUSTIN, TX
1pm-5pm
SIGN UP AND GET DIRECTIONS HERE
You can follow us:
on the web at www.onevoiceforchoice.com
on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/onevoiceforchoice
on twitter @OneVoice4Choice
16 Comments
Thank you for keeping this in the fore front Marta.
Tell me do Stupak and Nelson hold war funding in Iraq and Afghanistan over abortion?
Not a single Senator threatened to filibuster the war in Afghanistan billions for war but nothing for Americans.
8 going on 9 years but Now we think we can win???
Nope. It’s only the unborn these assholes say they care about. As soon as we have a living, breathing child the anti-abortion folks consider him/her as cannon fodder.
Just like the heat and the war on drugs – give us more money and people and we can win the war on drugs. How’s that working out for ya, Deputy Dipshit?
Great sense of priorities these Jerks have. This ploy to deny us healthcare because of abortion concerns is transparent real principles apply to all situations.
I admire your effort, this kind of phonebanking can have a real effect. Unfortunately, this is a losing issue. 25% of the House Dems are pro-life. The final bill may not have the exact Stupak language, but it will have something similar. However, currently only 15% of abortions performed were covered by insurance (presumably these were generally women with comparatively more financial resources.) In the future there will still be no shortage of access to abortion. IMHO Stupak is more of a setback to the abortion rights movement than actual abortion rights. And since the bill will generally lower people’s health costs, it will make abortions easier to pay for, since money is fungible. I’m not saying I like Stupak, I just think we can have very little impact on it and I hate for us to dilute our efforts.
Instead, I wish we could use the phonebanking tool to target Blanche Lincoln, etc., around the issue of the trigger for the public option, since that’s the one key issue that we could have some effect on.
It would be nice to know how many of the million or so who’ve lost their jobs in the last 6 months had health insurance. If a good majority of them did the insurance companies lost that many customers. The ERs will have lines running out the doors and around the corner. The forced birthers will have killed any health care legislation or we’ll have to kill it to keep the forced birthers from forcing their warped values on America’s female population.
I responded to a comment from Jane on my post about this that I would also be willing to do data entry.
You really don’t want me on the phones. I talk too fast. But on the keyboard… I’m great.
Phone banking is going on as we speak. Triggers in the Senate bill are not yet a reality. Link Lincoln to triggers that do not now exist and may not exist is not a winning strategy.
I hate the phone. I’m a geek so I can do the machine alla time.
The insurance companies are talking about raising rates I wonder if between losing customers and a bad economy to invest the money they do collect if the insurance companies are healthy?
One more financial shock might finish them (it would help if we could trust their books).
Taking the state’s regulating powers away is one way they will use to raise rates nationally without hindrance.
First-timer here at firedoglake. Heard you on Democracy Now this morning and I just had to register/pop in to give you an “attagirl!”
We need to be so much more aggressive on women’s rights. I am always so disappointed when the feminist organizations behave as if they have been “captured” by the Demopublican partisans. The Dems [where do they get off calling themselves "progressives"?] have been willing to throw women under the bus every time. When are feminists going to wake up and demand a repeal of the Hyde amendment? I do not want to have my taxes paying for ill-concieved wars, but I do pay them. Therefore, the Dems can shut up and pay taxes for a woman’s abortion.
I too saw you on “Democracy Now.” I live in Mississippi, and believe it or not there are some pro-choice folks who live here. However, there are no phone banks in my area, and I cannot host one. I wish you’d list the names of the Congressmen and women you’d like to push. I will do it individually. Why don’t you encourage people who do not live near or cannot get to a phone bank to call these so-called representatives and give them a piece of one’s pro-choice mind on their own?
I subscribe to a far right-wing publication of Donald Wildmon’s in Tupelo and do the opposite of what he suggests that his loyal followers do–i.e. calling up corporations and tell them that I (you) SUPPORT said corporation’s efforts at being inclusive of everyone. Since it seems that the feminist groups have abandoned their cause for loot, men and women of worth must sometimes act individually to protect our rights.
My suggestion would be for all those who are members of NOW, NARAL, and other alledged feminist organizations is to call up the leadership and tell them that you’re dropping your support for them if they do not get on the ball and out of the Democrats’right back pocket. I noticed that the radical evangelicals have little trouble whipping their minions into line using that approach.