NASW Action Alert for TODAY, May 11! Urge Your U.S. Senators to Pass the Women’s Health Protection Act (S. 4132)
NASW affirms all individuals have the right to freedom of choice in accessing essential health care services and most especially their reproductive health. On May 9, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022 (S.4132). The Senate will be considering the bill today, May 11.
With the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court, the need to pass this critical bill is more urgent than ever to ensure that access to essential reproductive health care, including access to abortion services, be safeguarded. By protecting abortion access from medically unnecessary restrictions that obstruct the right of all persons to obtain safe, legal abortion services, S. 4132 seeks to remedy and prevent the onslaught of state-level abortion bans and restrictions that cause significant and sometimes insurmountable challenges to receiving reproductive care.
These restrictions disproportionately impact the ability of low-income individuals and people of color to access health care, rob individuals of bodily autonomy, and threaten the economic security of families and individuals, many of whom are already struggling to get by. These laws are not only a threat to the constitutional right to abortion recognized in Roe v. Wade, but they are a threat to the economic security, health, and dignity of low-income people, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and others who already have difficulty accessing reproductive healthcare services.
Tell your senators to urgently support the Women’s Health Protection Act (S. 4132) to ensure that every person has the ability to make healthcare decisions that are right for them, free from government interference and discrimination.
Read the NASW full statement.
Read our Virginia Chapter statement.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA): 202-224-4024, Share Your Opinion at https://www.kaine.senate.gov/contact/share-your-opinion
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA): 202-224-2023, https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=ContactPage
“The NASW Code of Ethics requires social workers to advocate actively on behalf of their clients’ rights, and few laws are more core to those rights than the U.S. Constitution and its right to privacy, which ensures all Americans the right to decide our own health choices and futures,” says NASW Virginia Chapter Executive Director Debra Riggs, CAE.
“If federal legislation is not passed to reinforce this right, and the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, Gov. Youngkin has made clear his intent to try to ban abortion in Virginia,” she says. “Although people of privilege may be able to travel elsewhere to receive a safe, legal abortion, such a radical shift in established law and healthcare will fall disproportionately and most harmfully on Blacks and other minority populations, low-resource families, and other marginalized people.”