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The Fight for Abortion and Reproductive Rights Continues!

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Graphic entitled We Won't Go Back showing photo of street crowd protest holding large horizontal banner reading Our Bodies - Our AbortionsThe Cville Dems had a very busy week on this front.
Last Thursday night, 6/24, we partnered with Blue Ridge Abortion Fund to present a free webinar about how an overturning of Roe would impact the Charlottesville region. BRAF Development Director Deborah Arenstein and our Bekah Saxon gave welcoming and closing remarks, and the panelists (clearly already tired and frustrated preparing for the ban) gave a great presentation.
Friday morning 6/25 the overturning of Roe was announced. By Friday afternoon, we had coordinated with NOW and Bans Off Our Bodies for a 5pm rally at the Federal Building, arranged for the media to interview Sen. Lucas for comments at 6pm (see Fish Fry coverage above), and organized a ​​well-attended Cville Dems 11am Saturday 6/26 rally (here’s CBS19’s coverage, photos below).
As Sen. Lucas said, we are most definitely not giving up the fight (Pres. Biden came out Thursday in favor of a Senate filibuster exception for abortion rights)… but Virginia is on the edge of losing the next and deciding round of this fight. Gov. Youngkin has promised to push for an abortion ban, and if the Republicans gain seats in this November’s midterms then Dems won’t be able to stop Youngkin and his allies from outlawing abortion in Virginia too.
As we’re seeing, elections have very profound consequences.
Help the Dems organize and mobilize for November… join this fight!

Support Local Abortion Access with a Donation

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photo of dozens of protesters holding banner We Won't Go Back

Here are some of the leading organizations who have been and are continuing to do the very hard work of ensuring abortion access in our area:

Blue Ridge Abortion Fund: The regional fund is part of a national network of abortion funds that provides assistance to people seeking abortions — from money to help cover the procedure to transportation costs. Last month the Blue Ridge Abortion Fund was already recieving calls for assistance from people out-of-state. The fund provides financial assistance on a first come, first serve basis. They estimate that abortion providers and assisting funds in Virginia will face a continued uptick.

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia (PPAV): The state chapter of the national organization provides health services like birth control, pregnancy-related care, general health care, and transgender hormone therapy, as well as abortions. [Note– this is a 501(c)4 political organization.

Whole Women’s Health of Charlottesville: This is a local clinic and abortion provider that is part of a national organization. The organization also provides counseling, pap smears, STD testing and birth control. It can also mail abortion pills to clients.

[Above excerpted from Charlottesville Tomorrow, another good organization to support]

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (PPSAT): This is the nonprofit health care provider that operates theCharlottesville Health Center (and 13 other locations in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia).