Pro-Choice Wins Of 2013 As Told By The Muppets

Despite many efforts to restrict a woman’s right to choose and limit access to reproductive-health care, we won many pro-choice victories for women’s reproductive rights in 2013! Join us in celebrating the holidays and these pro-choice wins - brought to you by our favorite Muppets:

This summer, extreme anti-choice politicians in the Texas legislature passed one of the most dangerous anti-choice laws in the country that has already forced providers to cancel health-care appointments across the state.

We came *this close* to stopping them thanks to pro-choice Sen. Wendy Davis who took a stand and said

Despite the bill ultimately passing, Sen. Davis’ heroic 11-hour filibuster activated thousands of pro-choice supporters across the country.

Nearly 20,000 pro-choice activists across the country thanked Wendy for standing up for women’s health and safety.

We also celebrated a huge pro-choice victory of 2013 with the election of pro-choice Terry McAuliffe in Virginia, where women’s rights and access to abortion are on the line.

During the campaign, extreme anti-choice candidate Ken Cuccinelli was like: You guys, this isn’t about women’s rights, it’s about

Cuccinelli did what he could to hide his extreme anti-choice record...

Like his role in helping to close abortion clinics across the state, blocking access to birth control and supporting “crisis pregnancy centers” that use misinformation and shame to talk women out of abortion.

Watching him backtrack to hide his anti-woman positions and try to convince voters that he would protect reproductive rights if elected was kind of like this

That’s why we helped educate voters about what could happen if they elected Ken Cuccinelli to the governor’s mansion.

Women voters got the message, because they elected pro-choice Terry McAuliffe and shut down Cuccinelli at the polls.

Voters in Albuquerque, New Mexico also did something pretty amazing – they stopped a ballot measure that would have banned abortion after 20 weeks

It wasn’t easy. Anti-choice organizers from out of state bombarded voters with misinformation about later abortion care and even handed out fetus dolls to children on Halloween.

But they didn’t scare anyone. We teamed up with NARAL Pro-Choice New Mexico and made sure voters knew exactly what was at stake. When voters showed up on Election Day and said “no” to the abortion ban we jumped for joy.

But then, not too far away in Nebraska, a judge ruled to deny a young woman in foster care an abortion because she was not ‘mature enough’ and abortion care would “kill the child inside” her. …Seriously?

Clearly he wasn’t there to rule in a sensitive, informed and unbiased fashion. He was probably just like

We worked with a coalition of progressive partners to ask that Judge Peter Bataillon be sanctioned for putting his political beliefs above the rule of law and a young woman's welfare.

We gathered nearly 87,000 petition signatures demanding justice! The commission denied the request to investigate, but our effort with RH Reality Check and Credo Mobile was a show of our power that we’ll build on in 2014.

In California, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law that increases the number of trained health-care providers who can provide abortion care for women in their communities. Go, California!

But we didn’t just have big wins in the states. On the federal level, anti-choice groups launched an attack on insurance coverage of abortion for congressional staffers.

So we led an effort to flood the Obama administration with comments against the attack - submitting more than eight pro-choice comments for each anti-choice one received.

We won! We helped preserve the right for congressional staff to purchase abortion coverage in their health plans.

All in all, 2013 was a great year for getting the word out about these anti-choice attacks and for the pro-choice community coming together to protect women’s reproductive freedom. Will you join us in 2014?

Have a safe and happy holiday from NARAL Pro-Choice America!