More than 500 women from 25 states, delegates to NA’AMAT USA’s 31st biennial convention, staged a rally here supporting women’s access to safe and legal abortions.
The gathering in downtown Grant Park was a demonstration in support of women “who care about freedom of choice and freedom of conscience for all women,” said Gloria Elbling, national president of the women’s Labor Zionist organization.
“Reproductive choice must be recognized as a matter of individual conscience,” Elbling told the crowd. “Once again, women are being used as political pawns and the worst victim, as always, will be precisely those women who have the fewest options: the very young and the very poor.”
NA’AMAT staged the rally to protest a recent Supreme Court decision seen as giving state legislatures greater latitude in restricting access to abortion.
Also speaking at the rally were Sylvia Neil, chairwoman of the Illinois Jewish Alliance for Choice; NA’AMAT Israeli General Secretary Masha Lubelsky; and state Rep. Calvin Sutker (D-Skokie).
In addition to the rally, NA’AMAT passed a resolution at its convention supporting women’s access to safe and legal abortions, government aid for abortion procedures and confidentiality of family practice services.
NA’AMAT also resolved to embark on a program to monitor women’s rights legislation through its state watch committees; to mobilize support for legislation upholding a women’s right to choose and abortion; and to convey to state and federal representatives its “concern for preserving the constitutionally protected rights of all women.”
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