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Did you know that you don’t have to wait until November 2nd and stand in a long line to elect your next pro-choice leaders? Maryland has implemented early voting this year, and it has already begun!

Starting today, you can visit one of the early voting centers to cast your ballot without waiting in long election-day lines. You can do this any day until Thursday, October 28th (sorry, not Sunday) between the hours of 10am and 8pm. Just find your local early voting center by visiting the Maryland Board of Elections website, take your ID to the polling place, and cast your vote.

And before you go, remember to take a look at the 2010 Voter Guide from the NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland PAC. It lists all the endorsed candidates for statewide elections and labels candidates as pro-choice, anti-choice, or mixed choice. To find this information about your candidates for U.S. Congress, visit NARAL Pro-Choice America’s website.

It might even be a good idea to print your sample ballot before you go and double-check the address you are registered at. To do so, visit the Maryland Elections Center.

Now, what will you do with all that time you saved not waiting in line at the polls? Consider volunteering for a campaign that needs you. Many of our pro-choice leaders are being threatened by anti-choice opponents this year, and they need help during election time. If you would like more information about volunteering with other Choice Avengers, contact Amy Peyrot.

I know you are all going to do your part and vote for pro-choice candidates this election, but will you go one step further? The race for State Senator in the 42nd district is close, but with your help, we can defeat the anti-choice candidate and get Jim Brochin back to Annapolis to continue standing up for choice.

NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland PAC has endorsed Jim Brochin for re-election, meaning they believe he will continue to be a strong leader in the fight for reproductive rights. On the other hand, opponent Kevin Carney is listed as Anti-Choice on the NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland PAC 2010 Voter Guide.

Jim Brochin’s campaign has specifically reached out for support from pro-choice Marylanders, so we are responding. Please join Baltimore Choice Avengers in making phone calls for the Brochin campaign. Your help could tip the scales in such a close race.

If you are interested in participating, please contact me via email ASAP. There isn’t much time before Election Day (Nov 2nd), and we’re already missing the early voters, so we have to hurry!

Even if you do not live in the 42nd district, please consider taking some time to make a difference in this closely contested race. We all need more pro-choice legislators in Annapolis to defend against anti-choice attacks on reproductive freedom.

You may have already heard about the photo campaign we have launched with NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland, Pro-Choice and Proud. We launched the campaign together because it is time for Marylanders to stand up and show that they are proud to be pro-choice. After years of anti-choice bills being introduced in Annapolis and a severe lack of meaningful pro-choice legislation since 1998, Maryland needs to hear from the pro-choice community.

For the first phase of the campaign, we had a lot of fun making posters at Get Creative for Choice. Now is time for the second phase, and this should prove to be even more fun! In phase two, we are going to local events and taking pictures of proud pro-choicers with our wonderful posters.

We need fun people that want to mingle with crowds and meet new people (and potential Choice Avengers). No photography experience is necessary, and you don’t need to bring a camera. Just bring yourself and your pro-choice pride!

Join us at one of these fun events and help find your fellow pro-choice locals:

Thursday September 2nd, 6pm-7:30pm at WTMD’s First Thursdays in Mt Vernon Square
Saturday September 4th, 1pm-3pm at the Maryland State Fair
Sunday September 5th, 12:30pm-2pm at Camden Yards (before the O’s game)
Sunday September 12th, 1pm-3pm at HampdenFest on the Avenue
Saturday September 18th, 10am-11:30am at the Waverly Farmer’s Market

Please send your RSVP or questions about any of these events to me via email. You can also email me about your ideas for community events in which we might find people proud to take pictures with our posters.

From one very proud pro-choicer,
Amy Peyrot

It happens every year, but it never ceases to amaze me; anti-choice bills, including abortion bans, are introduced in Annapolis. It amazes me because I know that there are so many pro-choice Marylanders, yet they are not the ones Annapolis is hearing from. In fact, Maryland hasn’t passed meaningful pro-choice legislation at the state level since 1998.

That is why I am really excited that the Baltimore Choice Avengers are teaming up with NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland to launch Pro-Choice and Proud photo campaign. This campaign will help Marylanders stand up and show that they are proud to be pro-choice.

To start this project, we are hosting a really fun event- Get Creative for Choice. We will be making “I vote pro-choice” posters to be used in the photo campaign, and we need your artistic skills to make them awesome. Even if you’re not an artist, we could use your help. We need all sorts of talents to make the posters beautiful, inspiring… and (let’s face it) grammatically correct.

So I hope to see you on Wednesday, August 18th at 6pm at the Village Learning Place for Get Creative for Choice! Feel free to bring friends. We will be doing crafts for a cause, and hanging out with other awesome pro-choice Baltimoreans.

Learn more about the event and RSVP on Facebook. Or you can email Melissa to get more information or RSVP.

I hope everyone had a happy Fourth of July and survived the extraordinary heat wave.

June was a busy month for many Baltimore pro-choicers. A few of us (myself included) attended NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland and Planned Parenthood of Maryland’s volunteer training on June 16th, where we learned how to be community outreach experts. We then put our skills to the test, tabling at the Baltimore Pride festival. It was great! The crowd was so friendly and very supportive of Maryland’s Family Planning Works Act! This is a measure to expand Medicaid coverage of family planning services to more women in Maryland and save the state money. You may hear more about this in the upcoming legislative session or if you volunteer at a community outreach event.

Remember that you can still volunteer this summer and fall, even if you didn’t attend the volunteer training, because on-site tabling training is available at every festival. NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland is still looking for volunteers (English speaking and Spanish speaking) for Baltimore County LatinoFest in Dundalk on August 21st. There’s also Chesapeake Pride on August 7th in Mayo Beach Park. It is a bit outside Baltimore, but a day on the beach is sometimes a welcome relief for us city folks. Also, I bet that it will be just as fun and successful as Baltimore Pride and might even be a few degrees cooler.

In the mean time, there’s plenty of fun to be had this month. Don’t miss our next Pro-Choice Happy Hour on Tuesday July 27th. In addition to getting drink specials and socializing at the Happy Hour, we want to hear everyone’s ideas on the future of birth control access. So come to the Happy Hour to contribute to the conversation or just to catch up with your pro-choice friends and meet new ones!

Also this month, on the 22nd, is NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland PAC’s Protect and Elect fundraising reception. It may be a bit of a hike to Silver Spring, the PAC does important work helping to elect pro-choice candidates for Baltimore and for the state. They are a great resource in election season, so please show them some support, either by attending this event or making a donation. (Note: Donations to the PAC must be accompanied with specific information. Please contact the PAC to make a donation.)

Learn more about the next Pro-Choice Happy Hour and other upcoming events on our Events page. I hope to see you soon!

-Amy

The summer weather is finally here to stay, and that also means it is community festival season. This is peak time for activists like us!

I hope you will take some time this Sunday, June 6th, to drop into the Spiral Dance Womyn’s Center Music Festival and Fundraiser. The festival will feature live music, food, and crafts, and Baltimore Choice Avengers will be engaging and educating the community while mingling with other supporters of women’s empowerment. Make sure to stop by our table.

Tickets cost $12. More details can be found at the Spiral Dance Womyn’s Center website or the Facebook event for the festival.

If you have to miss the festival this weekend, don’t worry. There are plenty of chances to visit Baltimore Choice Avengers and NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland tables at festivals this summer. Mark your calendars now for NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland tables at Baltimore Pride, June 20th in Druid Hill Park, and LatinoFest, June 26th and 27th in Patterson Park.

Volunteers needed!
If you would like to volunteer to help educate the community at one of these festivals or in the future, you should attend our volunteer training session June 16th. NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland, Equality Maryland, and Planned Parenthood of Maryland are joining forces to host a volunteer training to teach you the skills you need to provide successful education & outreach at community festivals. To sign up for the training or to volunteer at local festivals, email Melissa@ProChoiceMD.org or visit NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland’s community events calendar.

Summertime is a great time to get out and educate our peers about who we are (pro-choice Baltimoreans!) and what issues are important to our communities. I hope to see you out in the field, whether you are visiting or volunteering. Keep cool and keep on!

-Amy

Happy Mother’s Day (belatedly)!

If you’re still looking for ways to celebrate, you should consider two events coming up this month. First, NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland is hosting their 3rd Annual Mother’s Day Brunch in Baltimore this Sunday, May 16th, and tickets are still on sale. This event is a great opportunity to treat a mother or any special someone in your life and see Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (a powerful supporter of women’s equality)!

Also, later this month, Choice Avengers will be screening and discussing “Motherhood by Choice, Not Chance”, a documentary from Oscar-nominated filmmaker Dorothy Fadiman. This will be a relaxing way to learn something while socializing with fellow pro-choice community members. I encourage all to come to the Pro-Choice Movie Night ready to get comfortable, eat popcorn, and enjoy the evening.

I hope everyone’s Mother’s Day was enjoyable and we can all continue to celebrate motherhood by choice all year. See you soon!

-Amy

I had a great time at the Springtime Happy Hour last Thursday discussing veganism, Los Angeles, and public transportation while drinking Magic Hats. And I hope everyone who came learned a little bit more about how this new health care reform package is going to affect reproductive health access in the coming years. If you missed the event, you don’t have to be out of the loop. I uploaded a fact sheet to the Google group so anyone can access it.

As I was saying at the happy hour, I am sure that many of you Choice Avengers may be looked at as the reproductive rights “gurus” in your social circles (or maybe you want to be). Our goal is to inform you so that you can inform others. So take a minute to read the fact sheet so you can explain some of the outcomes to your friends. They too are probably wondering what we really got out of the year-long battle.

One more thing you missed at the happy hour- UPCOMING EVENTS! May is a busy month, so check the events on our website. There’s a movie at the MD Film Festival you might be interested in seeing, and later in the month, Baltimore Choice Avengers are hosting a pro-choice movie night. You also want to make sure you don’t miss your chance to buy tickets to NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland’s 3rd Annual Mother’s Day Brunch!

I hope to see you all at another event soon!

-Amy

(by Amy Peyrot)

Yesterday, anti-choicers gathered in Annapolis to protest Maryland’s policy on funding certain abortion for low-income women. Predicting this hostility, Republican lawmakers from the Maryland House of Delegates presented a plan for budget cuts last week that includes eliminating this state funding. We probably all know that the state of Maryland is struggling to balance a strained budget, in a time when even more Marylanders require assistance, but this is simply not a good way to cut costs.

According to the NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland website, the cases in which low-income women can get state assistance for the cost of their abortions is already highly limited:

“Maryland prohibits public funding for abortion for women eligible for state medical assistance for general health care unless: (1) continuation of the pregnancy is likely to result in the woman’s death; (2) the woman is a victim of rape, incest, or a sexual offense reported to a law enforcement, public health, or social agency; (3) the fetus is affected by a genetic defect or serious deformity or abnormality; (4) abortion is medically necessary because there is substantial risk that continuation of the pregnancy could have a serious and adverse effect on the woman’s present or future physical health; or (5) continuation of the pregnancy is creating a serious effect on the woman’s mental health and if carried to term there is substantial risk of serious or long-lasting effect on the woman’s future mental health.” (See the NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland website for citation)

The Republican delegates say that this plan would save Maryland $2.1 million, because that is about how much was spent for abortions under this policy in 2009. But the fact of the matter is that cutting state funding for low-income women’s abortions will likely raise costs for the state, not lower them. The women who would lose financial assistance under this budget cut would then be forced to find alternative funding to terminate the pregnancies that are dangerous to their health or, in a more likely situation, they will keep their pregnancies due to lack of funding. This will cost the state more in medical expenses for the women and their pregnancies, and it could possibly cost the women their lives.

Even when the funding is not limited to dangerous pregnancies, it can still save money for the state. The truth is that abortions generally cost much less than prenatal and delivery care. John Nugent, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Maryland, said this back in January and got a lot of backlash from the anti-choice crowd, but the fact remains. Of course this financial reality does not mean that any government authority should encourage women to terminate their pregnancies in order to save costs. It just goes to show that the Republicans’ claim that this policy change would represent fiscal responsibility is a thin veil for their efforts to limit women’s reproductive freedom.

In fact, all spending on family planning (not just abortion) lowers costs for the state. A study recently released by the Guttmacher Institute finds that every $1 spent on family planning saves taxpayers $4 that would be spend on Medicaid-funded prenatal, delivery, and postpartum care for the pregnant woman and child. However, you would never hear about this tax-saving initiative from the Republicans Delegates because it does not fit their socially conservative platform.

Del. Anthony J. O’Donnell (R-Calvert/St. Mary’s and House Minority Leader) believes this budget cut makes sense because “even some who are pro-choice don’t want their tax money going to pay for someone else’s abortion.”

This is backwards logic. Plenty of people (of many political leanings) do not want their tax dollars paying for someone else’s health care at all, regardless of their personal views on specific procedures. Many people also don’t want their tax dollars paying for someone else’s education, rehabilitation, unemployment, or even snow plowing. People want the potential to use the tax dollars they pay, and since most people do not plan to have abortions, they do not “want” their taxes to pay for it. But that is not how taxes work, and the Republican lawmakers should know that.

Although the economy and Maryland’s budget are suffering, this is not a sensible approach to saving money for the state. Not only is it impractical (as it will likely end up costing much more than it saves); it is also unfair. High-risk pregnancies are a reality for all women. It is unfair to refuse to protect low-income women from this serious threat to their health simply because of politicians’ ideologies. The reality is that empowering women to make decisions about their pregnancy is not only the right thing to do, but it also makes fiscal sense for the state.