Nevada County Citizens For Choice

Promoting reproductive justice through education, healthcare access, and advocacy.

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Wake / teck2empower USA

June 14, 2022 By info@citizensforchoice.org Leave a Comment

The WAKE organization (WAKE stands for Women Accessing Knowledge Empowerment) makes grants available to non-profits whose missions involve social justice. Nevada County Citizens for Choice (C4C) President Elaine Sierra successfully applied for one such WAKE/Tech2Empower grant. In her application, Elaine asked for assistance in using digital media to raise awareness of the Clinic’s new location in Grass Valley. The project paired corporate mentors who volunteered their time to work with a team representing C4C. These corporate mentors developed actionable solutions and offered expert advice. The team representing C4C included: Abigail Rangel, of Women’s Health Specialists; Erin McGhee, Citizens for Choice Board Secretary and Sierra College student, Emma Sheffo, CalPoly student; and Jocelyn McKinley, Bear River High School junior. Three corporate advisors were assigned to the team, two of whom came from Cendzyne, and one from Google.

The Tech2Empower project ran for six weeks, using Zoom for all meetings, starting with a kick-off meeting February 24 and a wrap-up meeting April 8 for all participating non-profits. During the four meetings in between, the team of seven women met weekly through Zoom to focus on the challenge of increasing the community’s awareness of C4C and its services. Advisors over time developed actionable ways to address those challenges.

The resulting suggestions coming out of these meetings gave the C4C team some specific tasks to present to the Board on how to improve its digital media outreach to the community. For example, the websites for C4C and Women’s Health Specialists were deemed to need more obvious connection to each other. Appointments are made with Women’s Health Specialists (in Chico) for clients who need them in Grass Valley. Separate Facebook accounts for both C4C and Women’s Health Specialists also need to indicate their connection to each other. In addition, C4C Instagram account postings were advised to contain more hashtags to enable more hits from Google searches, with the goal of increasing followers and spreading awareness through this media.

Other miscellaneous areas of potential effectiveness included descriptions of the Clinic’s telehealth services, as many clients likely are not aware that they can receive virtual pre-appointment advice and information that can help them determine a plan of action for their reproductive health. Encouragement was given toward having a booth at different kinds of public gatherings to once again be known as a healthcare clinic—because reproductive health is healthcare.

All in all, participants gained insights and motivation to strategize a campaign to let the public know that Citizens for Choice is an option for the many services sought in the reproductive health area. Undoubtedly, we face a time where C4C needs to be on the radar of those women whose reproductive rights are likely be denied, based on state residence. Grass Valley, California, may well become a destination to regain those rights.

By Cece Royal

 

Filed Under: Current Societal Issues

What My Ancestors Might Think of This Moment in U.S. History

June 1, 2022 By info@citizensforchoice.org

MS. More Than A Magazine, A Movement, 5/27/2022, by Aletha Y, Akers

WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 14: Abortion rights activists shout at Anti-Abortion activists during a Bans Off Our Bodies rally and march to the Supreme Court of the United States on Supreme Court of the United States on Saturday, May 14, 2022 in Washington, DC. Abortion rights supporters are holding rallies across the country urging lawmakers to codify abortion rights into law after a leaked draft from the Supreme Court revealed a potential decision to overturn the precedent set by landmark Roe v. Wade. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

 

I read the draft decision by the Supreme Court in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and wondered what my ancestors would think of us—the U.S.—at this moment. I knew immediately what one might think. Her name is Lillie and her story motivates my work as an obstetrician-gynecologist and as an advocate for sexual and reproductive rights globally. She would say that history is repeating itself after learning little from its past.

Click Here to Read More

Filed Under: Reproductive Rights

A Glimpse of a Potential Post-Roe Future Through Texas Women’s Stories – The Washington Post

May 23, 2022 By info@citizensforchoice.org

Great article by Sophie Novack in The Washington Post 5/15/22

Kathaleen Pittman, director of Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, La., is relishing what feels like a moment of quiet, despite the drilling outside her office. On this Friday afternoon in mid-March, workers are replacing some of the abortion clinic’s phones, leaving hers briefly disconnected. Since Texas implemented a near-total ban on abortions last fall, the lines have been flooded with calls. “Our phones are literally worn out,” Pittman says.

Before Texas’s ban, she tells me, patients could call Hope Medical and get an appointment the same week for the state-mandated first consultation, and often come back the next day for the procedure. Now, it’s typically a two-week wait just for a call back to schedule a first visit, and a couple more weeks before patients can have an abortion. Pittman showed me a red clipboard with the waiting list of people who have called in the past 10 days. The stack of pages with names; phone numbers; how far along they are in pregnancy, if known; age and parents’ contact information, if they are a minor, is an inch thick.

This spring, I drove to clinics in Louisiana and Arkansas, tracing paths that many of the thousands of Texans who have left the state for an abortion in recent months have traveled and speaking to patients about the obstacles they have faced along the way. The abortion clinic in Shreveport, a 5½-hour drive, is the closest to my home in Central Texas that still offers abortions past about six weeks, which is before most people even know they’re pregnant. Little Rock — home to the two abortion clinics in Arkansas — is an eight-hour drive one way. Both states require two in-person visits, 24 and 72 hours apart, respectively, which means many patients must make the journey twice.

The stories that follow are snapshots from this moment. Texas women shared them with me in interviews inside the clinic during first consultation visits in Shreveport, in a car on the way to the clinic for a procedure in Little Rock, over the phone after finally having an abortion following weeks or months of waiting.

They’re also a glimpse into what will likely be a far more common and widespread reality very soon. If a similar version of the draft opinion leaked in early May holds, and the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade as expected, access to legal abortion would disappear in much of the Midwest and across the South, from Texas to the eastern edge of the United States. About half of states would likely ban abortion in the ruling’s wake; Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and 10 other states, have “trigger” laws that would ban the procedure almost immediately. As a result, more patients would end up traveling farther and waiting longer. These stories explore what that means — for mental health, for family, for work, for daily life in innumerous, interconnected ways. These are patients’ experiences, in their own words. Some women requested partial anonymity to protect their privacy. In the case of the woman who requested full anonymity, her OB/GYN, Crystal Berry-Roberts, who does not perform elective abortions but treated the woman after her procedure, confirmed her story.

Interviews have been edited and condensed.

I found out I was pregnant when I was about five weeks, and it was around six weeks when I started calling and calling. By the time I got [scheduled], they told me I was too far [along] to get the appointment in Texas at all. I got put on a waiting list here [at Hope Medical Group in Shreveport]. It took longer than two weeks. I had to wait and look for the area code to call me. You can’t miss this call.

I’m 12½ or 13 weeks. The GPS told me I was going to run into a crash, and I was going to get here late. I start panicking, trying to call while I’m driving to the clinic. You feel like all your decisions are just based on this law that put you in this time crunch. It’s painful because it’s already a hard choice. Knowing the baby is growing, being forced to keep pushing it along, and going through all these obstacles — it’s a little traumatizing.

I have five kids. My youngest is 4. Since I had her, I’ve been going through a custody case. I’m just trying to not make any more decisions, especially something financially, that’s going to hurt them.

I had an abortion about three years ago. But it was different because I didn’t have to be forced to get attached to the baby. I was able to make a decision and have it done. It wasn’t like being backed into a corner, feeling nervous and scared every day.

It’s affected my time with my kids. I can’t explain it to them, but they know something is going on. At times I think they’re scared that I’m sick or something. I keep making up all these excuses why I don’t have the energy or don’t eat with them, because I feel so nauseous. Going through the longer process and being depressed at times, ’cause you got to think about it for longer and longer — just trying to hide all of that from everybody who I care about, so they don’t take on those feelings. Especially my kids.

I found out that I was pregnant in the beginning of February. I knew [an abortion] was going to be expensive, that I was going to have to jump through all these hoops and hurdles. I was worried, you know: Am I going to get in trouble because of this abortion law? Am I going to get sued?

I was on a wait list [at Hope Medical Group] for like two weeks, and they finally set my appointment for March 4th. We drove four hours, booked a hotel. Friday morning, I had my consultation appointment. Then they tell me that I have to come back for the surgery. So we had to drive four hours back home, wait till the next Saturday to drive all the way back. It was a little hectic and stressful.

Thankfully, I’d just gotten my tax returns, so we were able to take care of everything financially. It was at least $1,000. If we hadn’t gotten our taxes, or if this was a later time in the year, we may not have even been able to do this. I don’t have health insurance. I couldn’t go to a real OB/GYN. Our Planned Parenthood is actually shut down. [My hometown] has one of those [crisis pregnancy centers] where you walk in and they try to tell you that abortion is bad, you know, God made this choice for you, and all that stuff. But they were able to give me an ultrasound and tell me how far along I was before we went all the way to Louisiana.

I was waking up every morning throwing up, couldn’t really eat, just dealing with all this stuff, while trying to take care of my [3-year-old son]. I dreaded every day, just waiting for that phone call [to get off the wait list]. It was awful. Like, please call me, please call me. Because the longer I wait, every day that goes by, I lose another day of my chance of getting an abortion.

To read more click here

Filed Under: Reproductive Rights

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Grass Valley, CA 95945

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