Protect contraception, enhance VAWA, and stop reckless gun sales: Civic action to-do list for 12-10-18

3. Take Notice, Then Comment! Your rights are at stake!

Women and girls deserve equal opportunity at school and the ability to make choices about their reproductive health, but the current Administration is undermining these rights. Using the rulemaking process, federal agencies have put forward regulations that limit access to reproductive choice and roll-back the civil rights of students. Join Jewish Women International and Catholics for Family Choice on a webinar TOMORROW for a briefing on the impact of the rules and how to how to amplify your anger about them. Allowing companies to deny access to contraception based on religious and moral beliefs and weakening Title IX’s protections can not go unnoticed!

2. VAWA Needs Updating!

The number of women killed as a result of domestic violence are staggering. Yesterday the Washington Post reported that “nearly half of the women murdered during the past decade were…killed by a current or former intimate partner.” Congress has an opportunity to update and enhance the Violence Against Women Act to create a stronger bill that protects survivors. Increasing money for prevention programs, allowing Tribes to prosecute non-Native rapists, and adding gun violence prevention measures are imperative additions to any reauthorization of VAWA. Call your members of Congress and tell them that merely extending the current law, passed in 2013, isn’t good enough!

1. Check All Backgrounds!

Gun violence is an epidemic in this country, and yet nothing is being done at the federal level to make us safer. Hundreds of thousands of people in this country are slipping through the “gun show loophole,” purchasing guns from private sellers without a background check. Over 90% of Americans believe that background checks should be completed before a person is able to purchase a gun. Congress must act! Leader Pelosi has gone on the record saying that passing universal background checks “will be a priority…in the next Congress”. Let’s make sure she keeps her promise! Call your Representative and tell him/her to support this commonsense measure.