Yesterday December 2nd was the Stupak Day of Action. 
I am sure many of you have heard about the Stupak Amendment which was added to health care reform. the Amendment would greatly limit women's access to abortion, not permitting it to be covered under health insurance and forcing specifically lower class women to revert to unsafe means of abortion. 

At the University of Cincinnati a group of students came together to fight this blatant attack on women's rights. We received mixed responses. 



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In participation with The Hanger Project we put up wire hangers around campus with these fliers on them to bring awareness to this serious situation. At the bottom we provided the switchboard number and encouraged people to contact their senators to let them know that they oppose the Stupak Amendment. 

Students from a variety of organization came together to table on campus for three hours. We provided scripts and phone numbers and asked people to stop and use their cell phones to call their senators. We also had a petition for the Stupak Amendment as well as other fun things like buttons and safer sex kits. 

While we did get one person who told us that "as a former fetus I oppose abortion," that was not one of the most common responses. In fact I found that one statement I kept hearing in response to my question of "Would you like to call your senator about health care reform," was "no, my senator won't listen." I found this response interesting. Because if one thing I noticed when contacting my legislators either by email or phone, is they do listen. Legislators want their constituents to be happy they are always listen politely and respond carefully to say the least. But I don't think we are ever leaving our words on closed ears. I am definitely not one to hail the bureaucratic legislative process but if nothing the process does at least pretend that we have a voice. Our legislators do not have to do whatever we say but they do want to keep their constituents happy if they want to stay in office. So in that sense if enough individual little voices speak up we really can effect change. I've realized that there is not much point in becoming so pessimistic about the legal process, because its not going to change unless we make it change. And if enough of us stand up for what we believe in I do believe it can happen. It might be frustrating and it might take time but it can happen. 

Overall we got 40+ signatures on our petition against the Stupak Amendment. At least 5 or 6 phone calls were made to Ohio Senators Brown and Voinovich. And who knows how many other people saw our hangers and decided to call on their own behalf. I engaged in conversation with a number of people and found a lot of people who wanted to get further involved with issues surrounding comprehensive sex education and reproductive rights. 

It would be easy to focus on the hundreds of people who passed by our table yesterday but I really don't see the point. I am going to choose to focus on the 40+ signatures we got and the 6 phone calls that were made. And hopefully those signatures and phone calls will help make the difference.