Allison Park Photo
Robyn Porter and Chris Murphy at mActivity.
“Democracy is on the ballot” this November, and advocates for women’s health need to make their voices heard.
Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy delivered that message Friday afternoon in a discussion with local women’s rights activists at mActivity Fitness Center on Nicoll Street.
He and others argued that women’s health hangs in the balance of the current confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as well as in the general election. At stake: The erosion or dismantling of Roe v. Wade and Obamacare.
As the weeks close leading up to the midterm elections, Murphy said the “best thing we can do” is to help people “understand the stakes” and convince friends who voted in the 2016 presidential election to show up to the midterm election as well. New Haven State Rep. Robyn Porter suggested that “disgruntled [Trump] voters” should also be targeted for the election this November.
“Democracy is actually on the ballot,” said Murphy, who is running for reelection this year and is regularly mentioned a potential future Democratic presidential contender.
There will be “some real practical consequences” in the midterm elections, Murphy said. He declared that he has faith that “voices are getting louder.”
Murphy and NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut Executive Director Sarah Croucher opened up the floor to the 18 Connecticut-based women’s health advocates and health care providers in attendance.
Murphy emphasized the importance of calling senators. “Washington is an ecosystem,” he said, “everybody hears what’s going on in everybody else’s office.”
In a shared office space with a front desk “within audible distance of” Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley’s front desk, Murphy said, he saw firsthand that during the repeal Affordable Care Act, the “volume level [of incoming phone calls] was just so big” that “they just couldn’t avoid it any longer.”
NARAL’s Croucher called allowing women to purchase contraception without co-pays through the Affordable Care Act “a game changer.” She cited than the level of unintended pregnancies “dramatically decline[d]” because of the lowered financial barriers in accessing contraception. Croucher said that this policy change supporting women’s reproductive health allowed them to “better plan their lives” and have more “economic security.”
State Rep. Porter made the point that a black women disproportionately face hardships when it comes to general and reproductive health. She noted that “243 percent more black women than white women are dying.”
She spoke of how fake women’s health clinics — covert pro-life organizations that encourage women against legal abortion — “prey on women of color and immigrants.”
“We can talk the truth to combat the rhetoric” and “bring humanity back into this argument,” Porter said.
Among the younger women in attendance was Yale Law School student Kayla Morin. She connected Murphy’s words to her work at the Yale Law School Reproductive Rights and Justice Project. Morin said the clinic is a “mix of policy and litigation” that allows for “direct client work” and a “hands-on experience.”