Inside A $100 Million Plan To Restore Abortion Rights In The United States

3 months ago

Kimberly Inez McGuire, the executive director of Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity, spoke to ForbesWomen editor Maggie McGrath about a new effort to protect reproductive health access in the U.S.

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Transcript

00:00And I'm Maggie McGrath, editor of Forbes Women.

00:02There is a $100 million plan to restore abortion rights

00:07in the United States.

00:08And here to explain that plan is Kimberly Inez McGuire.

00:13She is the executive director for URGE,

00:15Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity.

00:18Kimberly, thank you so much for joining us.

00:20Thank you so much for having me.

00:22I'm really excited to talk about abortion access.

00:25So what is this $100 million campaign?

00:28Where did the money come from?

00:30Yeah, so this campaign, Abortion Access Now,

00:33is being supported by nine executive committee

00:37organizations, half of which are reproductive justice

00:40organizations, and the majority of which

00:42are led by women of color.

00:43So every single one of these organizations

00:45has been raising funds.

00:47We are also raising funds as a collective.

00:49And the goal is to put those resources

00:52towards a massive effort to restore abortion access

00:56with a specific focus on federal policy.

01:00What we have seen in the last two years,

01:02the chaos created by dogs.

01:04We are going state by state with abortion bans,

01:07with Supreme Court cases that are forcing us

01:12to consider how many organs have to fail

01:14in a woman's body before she can get emergency care.

01:17I mean, there's confusion.

01:19People are traveling thousands of miles.

01:21It's unacceptable.

01:22The only way to restore some degree of access

01:28to this country is to have a federal law that

01:31makes abortion legal and accessible everywhere.

01:35So this $100 million, are you breaking it down

01:38state by state so campaigners in Texas will get some,

01:41campaigners in Alabama will get some,

01:43or is it all going towards lobbying

01:45the federal government?

01:47So those resources are going to be

01:48invested by all of the participating organizations

01:51in a variety of ways.

01:53So for example, URGE,

01:55we are one of the executive committee organizations.

01:57Our part of the work includes both the collective work,

02:03lobbying, talking to folks on Capitol Hill,

02:05building the political will

02:06for a broad abortion access agenda.

02:09That also includes the work that we are doing

02:11in places like Alabama and Georgia and Kansas and Ohio

02:14to protect and maintain abortion access

02:17wherever we have it and to stop abortion bans

02:20wherever we can.

02:21So you have referenced the last two years,

02:23obviously this past week,

02:25we marked the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision,

02:27which overturned Roe v. Wade.

02:29You have been working for the last two years

02:32to help people in states with abortion bans.

02:35How does this campaign differ from the work

02:38that you have already been doing?

02:40Yeah, so when I think about

02:43what has happened since Dobbs, right?

02:45And folks all over this country have been working so hard

02:49to fill the massive gaps

02:51and really the crisis that was created, right?

02:53I mean, the incredible work done by abortion funds

02:55all over this country,

02:56getting people to their abortions,

02:58often traveling hundreds or thousands of miles,

03:01the work that clinics have done

03:02in states where abortion isn't banned

03:04in bringing folks into their state to get care.

03:07And then there's been the ballot initiatives, right?

03:09And Urge is really proud to have co-led

03:11two of the seven winning ballot initiatives

03:14for abortion access.

03:15So, so much of what we've all been doing across the country

03:19for two years has been addressing the crisis,

03:21getting people their abortions,

03:23keeping abortion on the table in as many states as we can,

03:26because we think about states like Ohio

03:28that are an access point for the Midwest.

03:30We think about states like Florida that are,

03:32we want to keep as an access point for the South, right?

03:35All of that's usually important.

03:36Here's what's different.

03:37We are now looking at the possibility, right?

03:40That after this election,

03:42there might be a trifecta

03:44that is supportive of abortion rights.

03:46If that happens,

03:48it will only be because of the issue of abortion.

03:51The issue of abortion is what is motivating people

03:53all over this country.

03:54And if that happens,

03:56those elected officials need to know exactly

03:58what it means to deliver on abortion access

04:02and to stop the crisis.

04:04And so what this campaign is doing that is different

04:06is we are, folks are already mad.

04:08They don't need our help to get mad, right?

04:10But what we're doing is to try to galvanize that anger

04:13into a clear demand for federal policy.

04:17This cannot be a state-by-state issue.

04:19We need a federal law that makes abortion legal

04:21and accessible everywhere.

Inside A $100 Million Plan To Restore Abortion Rights In The United States

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