Reproductive Justice Task Force

The goals of the Reproductive Task Force are to:

a. Inform – Although NYS protects reproductive health rights, many other states do not. One of our goals is to determine how best to influence these other states, as well as to strengthen the protections NYS provides. This requires educating the membership about various state laws, federal laws and how they interact with Jewish law.

b. Inspire – The programs will be designed to engage people to interest them in the need to protect reproductive rights.

c. Act – An obvious way is to donate money to reproductive health rights initiatives. However, not all people are able to make donations and some people like to get actively involved in addition to, or an as alternative to donating. To this end, we maintain a list of potential action items.

WHAT CAN WE DO NOW?

• Support the ERA Amendment to NYS Constitution – “Flip” the Ballot in November 2024

  New York legislature passed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) bringing the amendment to New Yorkers for ratification on the 2024 November ballot. The ERA would prohibit discrimination by the government based on a person’s ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex — including their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes. It would also protect against any government actions that would curtail a person’s reproductive autonomy or their access to reproductive health care. The ERA would, for the first time, explicitly include language to clarify that discrimination based on a person’s pregnancy or pregnancy outcome is sex discrimination – an essential clarification given the national trend of criminalizing people for various pregnancy outcomes, as well as the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. Join us in supporting the ERA by clicking HERE for more information.

Reproductive Task Force Leader: Tanya Briendel, ReproJustice@wct.org