Save Women's Lives: March for Freedom of Choice on April 25, 2004
STATEMENT BY BETH GANZ
NARAL PRO-CHOICE COLORADO EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
October 28, 2003Thank you all for being here today. My name is Beth Ganz and I am the Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado. I am honored today to stand here with my colleagues from the Protect Families, Protect Choice Coalition to announce that Colorado will send an impressive delegation to the national March for Freedom of Choice in Washington, D.C. on April 25, 2004. Together we represent the power, the passion and the wide diversity of people who are pro-choice Coloradans. The sobering facts are these: Since 1995, states across the country have enacted 335 bills restricting a woman’s right to choose. Right here in Colorado, our legislature passed the first restrictive legislation last May. . . only 3 hours before adjourning for the year. Right now, President Bush is about to make history by becoming the first president ever to sign a law criminalizing abortion. The Supreme Court has a razor-thin majority protecting the right to choose. Those are the sober facts. These are dark days for pro-choice Coloradans. The chill wind that Justice Blackmun predicted a decade ago is now blowing at gale force. So it comes down to this moment. Since Washington and Colorado politicians won’t stand up for women’s freedoms and liberties, it becomes increasingly clear that only a powerful, mobilized, grassroots pro-choice movement can avert the devastating consequences of women losing their right to make personal and private choices about our lives. We will not stand by silently as our rights our trampled. Pro-Choice Coloradans are on the move. On April 25th we will travel to D.C. from all corners of the state. We are already recruiting for the March – you can go to any of our websites and sign up. At the NARAL www.prochoicecolorado.org site you can enter to win a contest for a free trip to D.C. We will organize. We will mobilize. We are ready to take to the streets to protect the health, lives, privacy and rights of Colorado women. We will save freedom of choice the same way it was won: one person, one neighborhood, one community at a time. This March will tell politicians both in Washington and here in Colorado to stay out of the doctors’ office, stay out of the clinics and stay out of our private decisions. Only a tremendous national statement such as this march can create the momentum that this decisive moment in history requires–and send the message to anti-choice politicians–
pro-choice Coloradans will not allow our freedoms to be taken away. ###
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