BACORR started in 1988 to accomplish two things: We defended Bay
Area clinics against the harassment and violence of militant
anti-choice individuals and organizations (exemplified by Operation
“Rescue” ) and we built a diverse movement of reproductive rights
activists that formed a strong community base of support for
reproductive rights and family planning clinics, and their mission of
serving working class and economically disadvantaged women. Clinics
that would have shut their doors stayed open because of BACORR’s
strategic and impassioned organizing.
THIS CLINIC IS OPEN
Starting
in the late eighties, BACORR built a movement composed of more than
3,000 reproductive rights activists that stretched from San Francisco
to Sacramento and Santa Cruz, and formed two sister organizations, the
South Bay and Sacramento Coalition Against Operation Rescue. Through
direct action, movement building and educational outreach programs,
BACORR defended Bay Area and Northern California clinics. BACORR worked
with the community and clinic staff and clinic patients to prioritize
these clinics as critically needed health care centers that honored the
value of a woman’s life, reproductive health, and equal humanity. But
they are once again under threat.
WE SEE…
A
landscape in which women face the onset of their fertility with
inadequate and inappropriately moralistic sex education. We see a
hostile landscape in which the price of contraceptives spiral, and
women are unprotected from hostile anti-choice pharmacists, who refuse
to fill prescriptions for birth control . Increasingly, millions and
millions of young women face the onset of their sexual maturity with no
health care available for the children they might bear, or for
themselves. Increasingly, we see a disaster of unimaginable proportions
as generations of women come into this world with their bodies held
under lock and key by theocratic governments officials and their allies
who cynically manipulate our fertility to expand their power and
embolden their base of support. Finally, we see those same government
officials and their supporters shallowly adopt the current voguish
rhetoric of the “pro-life” movement, even as they simultaneously vote
for ever-increasing military budgets, kill proposed environmental
safeguards, and slash domestic investments.
OUR BODIES ARE ON THE LINE. SO PUT YOUR BODY ON THE LINE.
Family
planning clinics, access to low and no-cost contraceptives, pharmacies
working with women and their health providers, pharmaceutical companies
honoring women's health by producing safe contraceptives, local, state
and federal governments pushing for clean air, water and land so that
women may reproduce safely- all these goals put real meaning into the
term “Reproductive Rights”. A woman’s right and ability to discern her
needs and to have her decisions enacted and honored by the confidential
relationships between herself and her doctor lies at the very heart of
reproductive freedom.
Without rights, women scramble to
cover the costs of contraceptives, healthcare and abortions. Without
low- to no-cost services offered by family planning clinics, only
economically privileged women have the privilege known as “privacy”.
Low and no-cost clinics extend this privilege to all and transform it
into a right, equally accessed and equally held by all.
THIS CLINIC IS OPEN.
WE BELIEVE…
Our demands are based on one fundamental belief:
Women
have the both right and responsibility to choose to reproduce or not,
under circumstances controlled and guided solely by the urgings of
their spirit and their reason.
This is not
negotiable. Neither the church, nor the state, nor any person who has
not been explicitly recognized by the women to be an interested party,
should in any way interfere with the woman’s choice. The state’s sole
function is providing the funds necessary to assist the women in
enacting that choice. BACORR simultaneously defends the rights we have,
as well as seeks out unsecured rights in the fight to establish full
reproductive rights for every women. No human being, female or male,
should have to face their fertility riddled with doubts,
misunderstandings, fear and ignorance.
WE CHOOSE…
HEALTH CARE FOR ALL…
- Low-
and no-cost pre-natal testing, quality health counseling for all women,
paid maternity leave, and living wages for families receiving welfare,
including health insurance for mothers and their children.
CONTRACEPTIVE AND ABORTION SERVICES FOR ALL…
- Low-
and no cost abortions and contraceptives that are available without
restriction, complete with informed choices about options and health
effects. We demand that all pharmaceutical companies that manufacture
chemical contraceptives practice due diligence when testing these drugs
and commit never to subject women to unsafe, or untested drugs or ask
them to participate in high risk drug “trials”.
AN END TO UNWARRENTED INTRUSION BY REGIONAL, STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS FOR ALL
- No
parental notification/consent laws, the restoration of federally funded
abortions services, the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, no coerced or
involuntary sterilization AND explicit, non-moralistic sexual education
for children, adolescents and adults, that includes recognition of
sexual and gender diversity.
WE WANT…
BACORR’s
vision of reproductive rights and clinic safety springs directly from a
history of direct action and grassroots organizing. Our model of
leadership lies in the grassroots, not elected federal, state or
regional officials. Thirty-two years ago, a grassroots movement began
the process of articulating a roster of reproductive rights by fighting
and winning, in the streets, the legal findings that made abortion
legal. We must add substantially to that bedrock finding. We can do
that by becoming a highly visible, and empowered community.
Elected
officials did not ‘give’ us the right to control our bodies. They
simply seconded our findings, and accepted the leadership we
demonstrated in countless marches, protests, vigils and direct actions.
Women from time immemorial have died because the process of female
reproduction was dis-honored, neglected or manipulated. Every human
being alive today who is descended from women who suffered through the
rigors of unattended childbirth or who was subjected to a non-sterile,
non-pain managed abortion. We can honor those women who gave birth and
controlled their fertility under the worst circumstances by pressing
ahead with newly renewed demands for the fullest expression of
reproductive rights for all women. BACORR is committed to building a
action-based, diverse movement, that combines the best of individual
self-determination with community-sponsored initiatives and actions
that prioritize and honor women’s reproductive abilities.
WE ARE…
A
multi –issue coalition made up of everyone who wants to finish the work
started by women and men who fought to rescue our reproductive
abilities from the hands of those least equipped to deal with them.
BACORR welcomes both individuals and groups, regardless of their
economic, political, religious backgrounds and traditions. Only one
thing is needed to work with BACORR: a passionate belief that there is
more work to be done.
JOIN US…
Bring
your ideas and your vision. Bring your diverse histories and
experiences. Bring the voices of your mothers, grandmothers, great
grandmothers. Bring your determination. Bring yourselves
