At the 2017 NOW Annual Conference in Orlando this summer, we passed resolutions in support of 5 national action programs:
- Advancing Voting Rights – our focus is on women in communities targeted by right-wing voter suppression efforts. We’re partnering with civil rights organizations and focusing on issues including racial and partisan gerrymandering, voter ID laws, and voter purges. We’re encouraging women – especially women of color – to not only vote, but also to run for office.
- End the Criminalization of Trauma – we will work with Title IX coordinators in middle and high schools to make sure that students who are survivors of sexual assault receive the services they need in order to stay in school, recover from their trauma, and thrive. Survivors in far too many public schools, especially girls of color and LGBTQIA students, face penalties, punishment, and are being pushed out of school.
- Mobilize for Reproductive Justice – we are fighting to defeat Trump’s Alternative Health Care Act (Trumpcare), which would defund Planned Parenthood, drastically cut maternity care coverage, and threaten access to birth control. We are promoting pro-active bills like the EACH Woman Act to guarantee full coverage of abortion care in all plans including Medicaid and the Women’s Health Protection Act to stop states from using deceptive legislation to shutter abortion clinics. We are also challenging the so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” that offer deceptive and downright false claims about abortion to shame and scare women facing an unexpected pregnancy.
- Protect Immigrants’ Rights – working with our allies in the immigrant rights community, we’re opposing Trump’s unconstitutional Muslim ban and fighting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s abusive raids, detentions, and deportations that tear families apart. We’re focusing especially on ways to keep restaurant workers safe from abusive enforcement tactics.
- Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment – we’re renewing our campaign to Ratify the ERA here in North Carolina, where our allies at the statehouse have introduced measures for state ratification in this and the previous assembly session. We’re part of the effort to gain ratificaiton of the 1972 ERA by two more states to reach the 38 necessary to enshrine equality under the law in our constitution, but we also support a start-over strategy for a new ERA – whichever works!! NOW is committed to an inclusive and intersectional ERA interpretation that centers the experience of marginalized people including LGBTQIA individuals, immigrants, women of color and women with disabilities. And we’re engaging a new generation in the struggle for women’s constitutional equality.
The National Action Plan provides concrete steps for local activists and chapters to take. You can take a deep dive into what those programs include at www.now.org/nap.
As NOW President, Terry O’Neill wrote, “With women’s rights facing more severe threats than we have seen in decades, NOW is fighting back. We are standing up for the rights and well being of all women, in all our diversity and in all communities. We are showing up for our allies in Muslim communities, in immigrant communities, in LGBTQIA communities. We have a message for Donald Trump and every politician enabling his white male supremacist agenda: We are leading societal change and promoting feminist ideals — and you need to get out of our way.”
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