We’ve just added a great new resource to our website called, “We Decide, Not Politicians.” It explains all the stuff we’ve shared with you here and teaches how to fight back!

There’s something here for anyone who’s ever needed, or thought about needing, any sort of reproductive healthcare. From birth control to IVF to miscarriage management to abortion care, we’re talking about all of it.

Use one of these easy, premade social media posts to share this information with your friends and family right now. Together we can shine a light on what these extremists are doing and make sure they stop taking away our reproductive rights. We decide what’s best for us and our families, not politicians or extremists!

The post Do This: Empower Your Friends to Help Protect our Reproductive Rights appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

We know that they have a plan to take away the abortion pill everywhere, even in states where abortion is legal. We also know that they’re testing a variety of state and local bills across the country to see what they can pass under the radar.

Jessica Valenti, author of the newsletter Abortion, Every Day, joined us for an event recently to talk about these attacks and what we can do to stop them. Watch this short video from that event in which she told us the most important thing we can all be doing right now to protect our reproductive rights in the face of these attacks.

The fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022 put our access to abortion care in the hands of state and local leaders. This created a patchwork of laws and varying levels of access to safe and basic reproductive healthcare, all just depending on where we happen to live. It’s scary and confusing for a lot of us, but we have a lot of power locally.

By subscribing to Easy A, you’re already taking Jessica’s advice to stay informed! Next week we’ll continue to be inspired by Jessica and take one more action to protect our reproductive freedom.

And if you have a little extra time this week, you can watch our full event with Jessica here on our YouTube channel!

The post Watch This: The New Attacks on our Reproductive Rights appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

The majority — 63% — of abortions in the U.S. are performed using medication, not surgery.

The FDA-approved drug mifepristone is one of the main pills used in medication abortions. Its safety has been proven for decades through more than 100 studies. It’s safer than Tylenol, Penicillin, and Viagra!

But Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. just announced that the FDA will take on a new safety review of mifepristone.

Why? Because a partisan group affiliated with Project 2025 just produced a biased, non-scientific report that questions mifepristone’s safety. Project 2025 wants the FDA to reverse its approval of mifepristone and ban medication abortion nationwide. This is their first step towards making that happen.

But here’s the thing — this is not what most Americans want!

81% of Americans believe that the decision to get an abortion should be between a woman and her doctor, not the government. And support for legal abortion has increased even more since the U.S. Supreme Court issued their 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, taking away our reproductive rights.

The media covered the immediate fallout of Dobbs, as 21 states swiftly banned abortion, but we haven’t heard much more about the state of reproductive healthcare lately. Unfortunately, as this RFK, Jr. announcement shows, we are all facing a new wave of threats to our reproductive rights.

These threats aren’t just at the federal level. Anti-abortion extremists are also trying to pass misleading state and local bills that are going underreported. Here are some examples:

• “Clean water” surveillance bills that would require the monitoring of wastewater for evidence of birth control, abortion medication, and hormone therapies. They claim it’s to ensure the safety of drinking water, but really they just want to detect where people are using these forms of healthcare.
• “Child protection” and “trafficking” bills that penalize anyone who helps young people get abortion care. In states with abortion bans, these laws call it illegal trafficking if you help a young patient get abortion care in another state. These bills are meant to chill community support, keeping us too scared to help the young people in our lives.
• “Baby Olivia” bills that require public schools to include an anti-abortion video called “Meet Baby Olivia” (or similar content) in their science or sex education classes. According to doctors and scientists, the video has biased and unscientific information.
• Bills that require collecting medical data on abortion procedures and providers and making that data public. This would enable anti-abortion extremists to identify doctors and sue them — or worse.
• “Equal protection” or “fetal personhood” bills that criminalize having an abortion or discarding IVF embryos. This means patients or doctors could be charged with homicide.

Extremists are testing these sneaky bills at state and local levels to see what will go unnoticed and get passed into law. If they can get them passed in one state, they’ll try in many more.

So what do we do in the face of these new threats to our reproductive freedom? We don’t let their tricks go unnoticed! We stay informed so we can spot these types of bills if and when they come to our lawmakers. Then we can work to stop them.

We can also make sure that the people in our community know that we are trusted sources of information and support. We won’t let these threats stop us from helping our community. We’ll share more specific actions we can take to protect our reproductive rights in the weeks ahead.

The post Read This: The New Attacks on our Reproductive Rights appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

In Ohio, advocates have filed a petition to raise the state minimum wage to $15 an hour and end subminimum wages for tipped workers, workers with disabilities, and youth. Tipped workers in Ohio currently earn $5.05. Nearly a million Ohio workers would receive a raise through this ballot measure.

The partners include a range of organizations, including SEIU District 1199, the Ohio Education Association, Ohio Organizing Collaborative, Red Wine and Blue, Ohio Voice, Policy Matters Ohio, and Ohio Working Families Party, as well as One Fair Wage.

Read the complete article at: Non-Profit Quarterly

The post How to Confront the Affordability Crisis: Use the Ballot to Raise Wages appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

Have you heard about the 1864 abortion ban that is going into effect in Arizona? Back in April, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that this law — which has been on the books since before Arizona officially became a state — is enforceable. It bans abortion from the moment of conception and makes it a felony to perform abortions or aid women in getting them. 

Thankfully, Governor Katie Hobbs and the Arizona legislature passed and signed a bill that will repeal this archaic ban, but unfortunately the ban will be in place for at least 3 months. 

In addition to the total ban, Arizona has more than 40 laws in place restricting abortion, from a 15-week current ban, to severe limits on medication abortion, to draconian clinic requirements.

Because of this, Arizona patients were already overwhelming California’s clinics, and this is expected to ramp up with the ban in place. Unfortunately, California’s clinics are overtaxed, with only 40% of counties containing a clinic and more than 5,000 women coming from out of state annually. Patients are on waiting lists and traveling long distances to find an appointment.

To help address this crisis, the California legislature has introduced emergency legislation to allow licensed Arizona doctors to practice in the state on Arizona patients. The law will go a long way toward alleviating that stress, allowing more doctors to work out of clinics and giving Arizona providers a sanctuary in which to safely treat their patients.

But there’s a need to cover costs for women who can’t pay for care on their own, which is why Red Wine & Blue has stepped up to help. Together with the guidance of CA Governor Newsom’s office, we’ve created the Arizona Freedom Trust in order to enable Arizona doctors to provide abortion care to Arizona patients in California, and to help Arizona women cover the costs — an estimated need of $500-$700 per patient.

And the Red Wine & Blue community has shown up in a HUGE way, already raising more than $111,000 for these women! The estimated need, however, is much more – California and Arizona are expecting hundreds of patients in the upcoming months — which is why we hope you’ll join us in donating today and spreading the word about the Arizona Freedom Trust. 

This is a huge opportunity for women across the country to extend our hearts and hands to the people of Arizona. When we come together to care for and support each other, we are unstoppable. Can we count on you to help today?

The post Do This: The Arizona Freedom Trust appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

Now we know that Crisis Pregnancy Centers are everywhere, and unfortunately they outnumber real abortion clinics by 3 to 1. And what’s really dangerous about CPCs is how they use misinformation to intentionally mislead women who need real medical care. So what can you do? 

Let’s share this information with everyone we know! So many people haven’t heard about CPCs, so be a part of our movement and share this message with your friends and family. It’s super-easy with our social share tool. With just a few clicks, you can share this information and earn your Easy A today!

The post Do This: The Truth About Crisis Pregnancy Centers appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

Listen to the story of Maleeha Aziz, who was misled by a crisis pregnancy center when she was unexpectedly pregnant while in college. Maleeha had recently moved to the U.S. from overseas and didn’t know anything about crisis pregnancy centers. Like so many women, Maleeha thought she was visiting a real healthcare facility. Instead she found herself being told lies about the risks of abortion.

After her experience, Maleeha has dedicated her career to helping other women get access to reproductive healthcare. She is now the Deputy Director of the Texas Equal Access Fund, where she speaks out against crisis pregnancy centers and other attempts to limit the reproductive rights of women in Texas. 

You can hear our full interview with Maleeha at The Cost of Extremism website or anywhere you get your podcasts. And stay tuned next week for an easy action you can take to make sure more people know about the misleading tactics of crisis pregnancy centers.

The post Watch This: The Truth About Crisis Pregnancy Centers appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

Despite their outward appearance as qualified health clinics, most crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), also known as “pregnancy counseling centers,” are often staffed by people with no medical credentials. They also have deep ties to religious groups who oppose abortion. You may be surprised to learn then, that the crisis pregnancy center industry operates on a national scale, receiving millions of taxpayer dollars annually while serving as a key player in the anti-abortion movement. 

So how do women seeking abortion care wind up in a crisis pregnancy center? Unfortunately, CPCs rely on deceptive marketing. They aim to attract women who are seeking abortions by pretending to offer real healthcare options. They place ads near schools, colleges, and in online spaces to target women who are searching for abortion clinics. When women search for abortion clinics online, these centers’ ads often appear at the top. A report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that over a two year period, anti-abortion groups spent an estimated $10.2 million on Google search ads. Those ads were clicked on an estimated 13 million times, often by women looking for real reproductive care.

Once vulnerable pregnant patients are inside, CPCs often use religion to influence their decisions. They display religious visuals and symbols — things you wouldn’t normally see in a medical setting. They often have strict anti-contraception policies. They equate birth control to abortion and promote an abstinence-only lifestyle. 

Staff at many CPCs dress in medical attire like white coats and scrubs, even if they aren’t certified medical professionals. They perform non-diagnostic tests. They also use disinformation, manipulation, and scare tactics to dissuade women from seeking abortions. They use fake medical terms, imply false connections between abortion and other health risks, cite non-existent studies, and repeat claims that have consistently been debunked by reputable institutions. A Planned Parenthood investigation found that 80% of CPC websites have false or misleading information. 

As you can see, CPCs manipulate pregnant women through every step of their search for abortion care, from misrepresenting who they are and what options they provide, to using fear and guilt to stop women from getting abortions, and even misleading women about the gestational age of their pregnancy. These tactics delay or prevent women from accessing timely abortions and potentially jeopardize their health. 

To make matters worse, as of 2023, CPCs outnumber real abortion clinics by 3 to 1, with over 2,500 operating in the U.S. CPCs are a dangerous part of the anti-abortion movement and not enough people know about them, but we’re going to change that! Stay tuned next week to hear directly from a woman about her CPC experience.

The post Read This: The Truth About Crisis Pregnancy Centers appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

By now you’re probably wondering, how can we stop this attack on reproductive care? That’s why we’ve launched a new campaign called, They’re Coming for IVF and Birth Control…We’re Coming for their Jobs, and we want you to join us! 

Join our campaign to say “hell no” to extremists who want to take away our rights to IVF and birth control.

Through this campaign, we’ll keep you informed about what’s going on with these issues, and give you simple actions to take throughout the year. The first one is easy – just sign up!

The post Do This: They Are Coming for IVF and Birth Control appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

It might sound hyperbolic — we know it’s hard to imagine this could happen in the United States — but we’ve seen it happen before. Just watch this video and listen to the way Supreme Court Justices promised Roe v. Wade was settled law, then overturned it. Now extremist legislators see a path to continue to strip away all our reproductive choices. 

Extremists are coming for our rights. Stay tuned to learn how you can help us come for their jobs.

The post Watch This: They are coming for IVF and Birth Control appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.