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The War on Women

There can be no doubt that the war on women achieved full scale in 2011. The anti-abortion battle was waged in Congress and in the states, with hundreds of bills introduced and with attempts to deny any funds for Planned Parenthood—government funds that provide a variety of health care services for women and are not used for abortion.

CREDO members pushed back hard against this assault. They even put their money where their values are and raised $81,761 by rounding up their phone bills so the extra funds could be sent to Planned Parenthood affiliates. That was in addition to our 2011 donation of $206,630 to Planned Parenthood. And when Rep. Cliff Stearns launched a sham “investigation” into Planned Parenthood, so many CREDO members asked him to call it off, he told us he didn’t believe they were from real people. So we asked our members to call his office, and within 24 hours, more than 1,000 members did just that.

On the birth-control front, anti-choice extremists lobbied the Obama administration to make it more difficult and expensive for women to get contraceptives. But CREDO members raised their voices in support of women’s rights and, thanks to their 309,597 signatures and 2,459 calls to the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services announced in August that contraceptives should be considered preventive care. The agency directed insurers to cover birth control at no extra cost. Meanwhile, attacks intensified on a woman’s right to choose, and the “Personhood Amendment” on the Mississippi ballot was among the worst. It would have outlawed abortions, in vitro fertilization, and most forms of birth control. But with help from CREDO members in the state, who volunteered to campaign against the odious amendment, it was soundly defeated.

One outrageous advertisement in Pennsylvania caught our attention because it promoted a long-standing myth about rape. The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, intentionally or not, implies in its “Call the Shots” ad campaign that women who drink too much are to blame if they get raped. The campaign’s posters said “She didn’t want to do it, but she couldn’t say no.” CREDO members sent 12,000 emails in 12 hours to demand that no taxpayer money be spent to promote such a dangerous message. The board pulled the ad.

2011 Activism home