It's Women's History month, when we celebrate how far women have come in the struggle for rights. We celebrate with thematic school curricula and history museum displays on suffrage. While it's always exciting to remember the victories of the movement, it's important that we don't get complacent, which is easy to do--especially with a pro-choice president and legislative branch. The best way to celebrate Women's History month? Take the time to sign a petition, write a email to or call your legislators, or join a rally. Do something to help further the cause, because we can't just rest on our laurels while our opposition keeps undermining the rights we've won.

How far have we really come when the anti-choice movement is still succeeding in eroding our reproductive rights? Over thirty years after Roe v. Wade, reproductive rights are still under attack, and still not seen as basic health care. For some reason, our reproductive organs are considered separate from the rest of our body. Sure, Obama repealed Global Gag Rule in January and has just started the process to rescind the HHS rule which Mike Leavitt, Bush's Secretary of Health and Human Services, pushed through at the twelfth hour, but there are still a lot of threats to reproductive rights:

1) Because of the economic crisis and the deficits being dealt with across the country, many states are seeing serious and damaging cuts to funding for family planning and other reproductive health care services. Legislators argue that we can't afford to fund these programs, but the truth is, we can't afford not to: according to the Guttmacher Institute, for every $1 that is spent on family planning nationally, the state saves $4.02 that it would otherwise have to spend on unintended pregnancy care costs and STI costs.

What you can do: Let your legislators know just how important funding for family planning is--remember, they represent you, and as their constituent, your opinion matters.

2) There is a major campaign to defund Planned Parenthood right now, which would severely cripple women's access to family planning, birth control, and abortion. Anti-choice Senator David Vitter is attempting to strip Title X funding for Planned Parenthood from the Appropriations Act. With the economy as it is, more and more people are using Planned Parenthood--and for many, it is the only health care they receive. Anti-choice legislators are trying to shut down every Planned Parenthood health center in America.

What you can do: Tell you senators to vote "NO" on the Vitter Amendment:

3) Anti-choice Senator DeMint is pushing an amendment to undermine access to birth control. In the Appropriations Act, there are provisions for affordable birth control, which anti-choice senators are attacking as an "earmark" for Planned Parenthood. In reality, it doesn't fund Planned Parenthood or anyone else. It simply fixes a mistake in the law that put up a roadblock for pharmaceutical companies who wanted to offer cheaper drugs to health clinics.

What you can do: Call your senators right now and tell them to vote "NO" on the DeMint Amendment to strip affordable birth control provisions from the Appropriations Act. Make sure they know that this is NOT an earmark, but a vital piece of legislation that will expand access to family planning services for thousands of low-income women and college students and help them prevent unintended pregnancies at no cost to the federal government or to tax payers. Call the Senate switchboard at 202-224-3121 to contact your senators.

With the election of President Obama, many of us are sitting back and waiting for him to make change. The reality is that this isn't the way it works. We can't just rest on our laurels and assume all the good things we want are going to happen because we elected one man. We have to take advantage of the grassroots momentum the Obama campaign created, and the support we have in Washington, and keep pushing for a better American for all women. The way to honor our sisters in history who furthered women's rights is not through a token month of history displays and middle school history lessons, but through fighting even harder to continue the movement they started. A stagnated movement does them no honor, and does us no good.

2

You recommended