To the Great Women of Poland,
The world is in awe of your principled activism and is filled with admiration for your courage and commitment. American Feminists stand with you. We salute and support you with love and pride.
You have marched by the thousands in response to the October 22nd Tribunal ruling which denied abortion even in cases of fetal abnormality in what has been called the largest demonstration in the country since the fall of communism.
Ignoring threats of prosecution, violence from the Right, and the dangers posed by a surging Coronavirus, while displaying symbols of Red Thunderbolts, Hangers and Umbrellas, your resistance intensifies daily. You have challenged formerly “untouchable” institutions and are a stellar example of what people everywhere need to do in the fight against oppression and for women’s freedom.
Julia Przylebska, President of the Tribunal, has stated that allowing abortions in cases of fetal abnormality legalizes “eugenics” and because the Polish Constitution guarantees a right to life, terminating a pregnancy based on the health of the fetus amounts to “a directly forbidden form of discrimination.” This latest ruling imposes a near total ban in Poland that already has some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe.
You have had the courage to say no to this egregious diminishment of women’s humanity and moral agency.
Legal abortion is an integral core of women’s health and is the necessary condition for women’s freedom. We all know that nothing stops abortion – no law, no government, no religious authority. Making abortion illegal only makes it dangerous and deadly.
You demand legalization of abortion in the name of all your daughters, mothers, sisters, and grandmothers who alone and in pain lost their lives in back alleys or on dirty kitchen tables for their right to choose.
Women of Poland-We stand with you and attest that Women’s Rights are Human Rights.
Women are full moral agents with the right and ability to choose when and whether or not they will be mothers.
Abortion is a choice made by each individual for profound personal reasons that no man nor state should judge or control.
The right to make reproductive choices is women’s legacy throughout history and belongs to every woman regardless of age, class, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual preference.
Abortion is a life-affirming act chosen within the context of women’s realities, women’s lives, and women’s sexuality.
Abortion is often the most moral choice in a world that frequently denies healthcare, housing, education, and economic survival to women.
Women’s rights remain in a state of emergency. If not now, when? If not you–then who?
We stand with you in solidarity.
MERLE HOFFMAN
Founder/President/CEO
Choices Women’s Medical Center
PHYLLIS CHESLER
Author,Co-Founder, National Women’s Health Network, Association of Women in Psychology
GLORIA STEINEM
Activist and Author
NAOMI WOLF
Author
LORI SOKOL, PhD.
Executive Director/Editor-in-Chief, Women’s eNews
JANE MANNING
R
DANIELLE BELTON
Editor-in-Chief, The Root
MONA SINHA
Board Chair, ERA Fund for Women’s Equality;
Board Chair, Women Moving Millions
SUSAN HERMAN
President ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)
Recipient Chair of the inaugural Ruth Bader Ginsburg Professor of Law
PAULA J. CAPLAN, PhD.
Associate Professor, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research
Harvard University
JUDY NORSIGIAN
Board Chair, Our Bodies, Ourselves, on behalf of the Board and Founders
KRISTEN BROWDE
Member of the Board of Directors of the LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York, Equality NY and the National Transgender Bar Association
BAHAR JALALI
Founder of the First Women and Gender Studies Program in Afghanistan
SUSAN BENDER
Matrimonial Lawyer
FRANCES KISSLING
President, The Center for Health, Ethics and Social Policy
Washington, DC
JAMIA WILSON
Executive Director & Publisher, Feminist Press
City University of New York
JUDITH LEWIS HERMAN M.D.
Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard University (part-time)
ROBIN TYLER
Executive Director, Equality Campaign
HEIDI L. SIECK
CEO/Co-Founder
#VOTEPROCHOICE
JODY RAPHAEL
De Paul University College of Law
ANA OLIVERIA
President & CEO, New York Women’s Foundation
HELEN HARDACRE
Professor of Japanese Studies
Harvard University
MARCY SYMS
President, Sy Syms Foundation
Recent Chair of the Women’s Equality Fund
ABIGAIL McGRATH
Founder of Renaissance House, a retreat for writers on social issues
BREANNE FAHS
Professor of Women and Gender Studies,
Arizona State University
AMY FERRIS
Author, Screenwriter, Playwright
SHARON NELSON
CEO at Civically Re-Engaged Women (Crew)
TALI FAHARDIAN WEINSTEIN
Candidate for Manhattan District Attorney
AVIVA CANTOR
Feminist and Zionist activist, author.
BARBARA JOANS
Author, anthropologist
DR. SHULAMIT MAGNUS
LINDA STEIN
Sculptor, Founding President of
HAVE ART: WILL TRAVEL
DAPHNE PATAI
Author, Professor of Languages, Literatures and Culture
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
JENNIFER BAUMGARDNER
Dottir Press
NANCY S. ERICKSON, ESQ.
Attorney at law
Brooklyn, NY
JODY RAPHAEL
DePaul Universtiy
College of Law
MARILYN P SAFIR
Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies
University of Haifa
ZSUZSANNA BUDAPEST
Author and Wise Woman
MANDY SANGHERA
International Human Rights Activist, UK
MARTHA SHELLY
Novelist, poet
AMY SCHOLDER
Producer
DISCLOSURETHEMOVIE.COM
KARYN GERSHON
Project Kesher
MAX DASHU
Director, Suppressed Histories Archives
CLAIRE MOSES
University of Maryland
KATHY SCARBOROUGH
Co-editor of MeetingGroundOnline.org
EVELYN SHEPERD
Choreographer, dancer.
SANDY RAPP
Feminist Musician
FRAN LUCK
Pacifica Radio WBAI
NAOMI WOLINSKY
Grandmother
PHYLLIS KROFF
JOAN L. ROTH
Photographer
LENORE WALKER
Psychologist and Author, “The Battered Woman”