5 Pro-Choice Resolutions For 2014

With a new year comes new ideas, new goals, and new resolutions for the future. We have a few pro-choice resolutions of our own for 2014 – because every year is a year to protect a woman’s fundamental right to choose when and if they want to start a family. Check out our list of 5 pro-choice resolutions for 2014:

1) Improve access to reproductive-health care. Damn right. It’s not just important - it's essential - that you, me and all of our sisters have reproductive care.

Having the right to abortion, birth control, or any other reproductive-health care is pretty meaningless if you can't afford it or the nearest doctor is hours away. That's got to change - and it's starting to change. Did you know that California passed a law to increase the number of trained professionals who can provide abortion care? And pro-choice members of Congress are currently working on the Women’s Health Protection Act to protect women’s reproductive-health access. 2014 won’t just be a year for defeating anti-choice attacks; we’re going on offense to expand women’s reproductive rights and freedom across the country.

2) Hold anti-choice people accountable for their attacks on reproductive rights.

We can't let anti-choice politicians, officials, or groups get away with stealing our rights consequence free. In Nebraska, we led a campaign to hold an anti-choice judge accountable for refusing to hold his bias in check and not giving a young woman who needed abortion care a fair hearing. We sent more than 89,000 petition signatures calling on the Nebraska Commission On Judicial Qualifications to investigate him.

3) Fight and defeat attacks in the states that are designed to make it next to impossible for women to access abortion.

We can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time, which is why we'll keep playing defense while we go on offense - because anti-choice forces are relentless. Like in New Mexico, where anti-choice groups came from out of state to ban abortion after 20 weeks– the first municipal bill of its kind. We worked with local pro-choice groups and against all odds, we won! Or in Texas, where we stood strong with Wendy Davis and NARAL Pro-Choice Texas to try to stop anti-choice politicians from closing abortion clinics (and it would have worked if they hadn't changed the rules to take away our rights).

4) Elect more pro-choice lawmakers across the country - especially in the states - and show that choice is an issue candidates can run on and win.

We can only expand access to reproductive health care and stop anti-choice attacks with pro-choice lawmakers in office – that must continue in 2014! In 2013, we saw that choice is a winning issue among voters when Virginians rejected extreme anti-choice and out of touch Ken Cuccinelli and elected pro-choice Terry McAuliffe to be the next governor of Virginia. We also celebrated a win when voters in Massachusetts elected pro-choice Ed Markey to the Senate.

5) Expose anti-choice “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs), fake clinics that look like real health centers but lie to and shame women to prevent them from choosing abortion.

No one deserves to be lied to, especially if you're facing something potentially life-changing like an unplanned pregnancy. We are calling them out one by one. In Minnesota, a pro-choice student named Payne submitted a letter to his school newspaper and warned his fellow students of a local CPC distributing misinformation around campus. The CPC director lashed out at Payne via email telling him to “put on your big girl panties” and “drop out of school.” You can read the entire email on our Facebook page.

In other efforts to expose these fake clinics, we led a week-long campaign to share experiences and stories from women who went to a CPC looking for accurate medical information and compassionate assistance. Check out some of the crazy things real women heard at a CPC.

Are you ready? Then let’s get this 2014 pro-choice party started!