Our own line of Signature Wines...pretty classy!

No, we didn’t get sneakier. But we did get craftier, by ending 2011 with our first-ever craft bazaar and reception: A WHO/O Holiday Affair to Remember! On December 1, we threw a house party in Columbus to give our friends and supporters a chance to mingle and celebrate the holiday season. We provided some delicious appetizers (thanks, board members!) and some special guests: local crafters who came out to support our cause and sell their wares. Throughout the night, a portion of all sales benefited Women Have Options. Vendors included:

Wholly Craft: Wholly Craft is an awesome local boutique for handmade goods in Columbus. They brought a great variety of their most popular items, including Stinky Bomb soaps, Out of the Pink Sky‘s vintage-styled jewelry, AmyD‘s handmade aprons, stationery and magnet sets by Poshta Design, and hand-sewn stationery and fabric scarves by Umbrella Girl Productions. We recommend this place highly! It’s woman-owned, supports progressive local organizations, and has items that you just can’t get any place else.

Jewelry for Choice: Based in Athens, Ohio, Jewelry for Choice is a group of jewelers who use their talents to support abortion access. They sell hand-crafted jewelry items and donate a portion of the proceeds to pro-choice causes like Women Have Options. The Never Again pendants are their most well-known item, but they sell many other kinds of pieces too.

Signature Wines: Signature Wines is an urban micro-winery in Columbus. Signature Wines is the only winery in Ohio with a female owner and award winning wine maker. They specialize in creating customized labels for gifts. Thanks to their help, we had our own WHO/O wine for the evening, including cabernet sauvignon, unoaked chardonnay, and zinfindel blush!

Additionally, local photographer Katherine Stewart donated a beautiful framed print of “The Buddha” for a silent auction, while supporter Grace Cherrington donated fabric gift bags for door prizes. Thanks for your generous donations!

Overall, the night was a huge success. Not only did we have a lot of fun, but we raised over $1300 for WHO/O. Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, women all over Ohio will have a happy and healthy new year.

On behalf of the women we serve, Women Have Options would like to thank everyone who made our holiday event such a huge success. We are looking forward to 2012′s gathering already! In the meantime, we still have some wine left…any takers?

Activists in Maryland rally to support Dr. Carhart's clinic, a popular target for anti-choice protesters and the only clinic that can help many women dealing with late-term abortion. We love Dr. Carhart too!

WHO/O is here to make sure every Ohio woman has the right to choose the medical care she needs. Traditionally, WHO/O’s funding goes directly to clinics in Ohio to assist clients who cannot afford abortions or other procedures. However, sometimes help is needed above and beyond that financial assistance. When that happens, we’re here to help.

In October, one of the clinics we fund had a 20-year old client who was 25.3 weeks into the pregnancy. In Ohio, the procedures that would allow for an abortion to take place at this point in the pregnancy are prohibited. Like many women in Ohio, and other states where these procedures have been made unlawful, she was referred to a clinic outside of Ohio for the care she needed. She was referred to Dr. Carhart’s clinic in Germantown, Maryland. Dr. Carhart’s clinic, one of the few places in the country that will perform a later-term abortion, is a popular target for anti-choice protesters and a political punching bag for anti-choice activists. It is also one of the few places in the country that many women who find themselves unable to continue a pregnancy can get the care they
desperately need. The family was impoverished, and needed assistance for travel, lodging, and food in addition to the procedure. All told, the family needed over $6000 to make the journey. An urgent request for funding went out to the funding community, as the client and her mother needed to get to Maryland as soon as possible.

Diverse funding sources stepped up to offer their assistance, including some of the national abortion funds and a local fund near the clinic in Maryland. Other groups and individuals pledged dollar amounts large and small. WHO/O pledged $500 to help this Ohio woman get the care she needed. Staff at the Ohio clinic that originally referred the woman shepherded the woman and her mother onto the bus to Maryland, and met them at the bus stop upon their return. Many, many groups and individuals across the country came together to help a woman afford her reproductive choice.

Your donation truly can make the difference for women in situations like this. If you want to help us in our mission of providing real access to reproductive health care for every woman in Ohio, please make a donation here: http://womenhaveoptions.org/donate. With your help, we can ensure that a woman’s right to choose is a right she can access, regardless of finances or anti-choice politics.

“Part of what motivates me to stay involved is my vision for changing the cultural conversation about abortion—integrating women’s personal stories into the cultural conversation on abortion, humanizing the face of abortion, so that the conversation isn’t simply about fetuses and rights and something called “choice.” So that people realize that we probably all know someone who has had an abortion, that it’s a normal part of women’s lives. Stories of abortion have power. I have seen that power in action, and have seen how these stories—both my own story of abortion and the stories of other women—help raise funds so low-income women in Ohio can afford their reproductive choices. I’m just getting started…”

Read the rest of the piece here, and check out the other great features on Feminists for Choice!

1. The Heartbeat Bill would require a medical provider to perform an ultrasound and look for a fetal heartbeat as a part of pre-abortion medical counseling. According to this legislation, if a heartbeat can be found, the doctor must play the sound for the woman, show her the image on her ultrasound, and explain what it is. Terminating the pregnancy would then be forbidden. A fetal heartbeat can be detected as early as the sixth week of a pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant.

2. The bill includes no exception for rape, incest, or the life of the mother. This is a point of contention for supporters and opposition alike.

3. The stated purpose of the Heartbeat Bill is to contribute to incremental legislation that pushes fetal viability criteria back to the point of conception. As stated in the official Heartbeat Bill Q & A: “Once we draw the line of protection [at the detection of a fetal heartbeat] . . . our goal will actually be within reach. One strategic approach would be to introduce legislation to move the line back to ‘presence’ of a heartbeat instead of detection of one. That moves the line to 18 days and would protect virtually every child. Then, with the unique DNA which appears at conception, we move the line 18 days from there: a short distance has always been easier to travel than a long distance.”

4. The Heartbeat Bill is being supported to provide a direct challenge to the Roe v. Wade decision.
The Roe v. Wade criteria of fetal viability is that a fetus is considered “viable” after 22 to 24 weeks. Under the Heartbeat Bill criteria, if a fetal heartbeat is detectable, an abortion is prohibited regardless of the amount of time that has passed since conception. States can restrict abortion access after fetal viability is established, but not before. The Heartbeat Bill is in direct conflict with this federal ruling, and may be considered constitutionally unenforceable. Supporters of the bill are hoping that it can force a challenge to the Roe v. Wade decision at the U.S. Supreme Court.

5. Even if the Heartbeat Bill isn’t enforceable, if it is signed into law, it will still affect pre-abortion counseling requirements. Even if some parts of the Heartbeat Bill are found to be unconstitutional and are struck down, other parts of the law will remain: notably, the part of the law requiring a health care provider to make a fetal heartbeat visible and audible to the mother as part of the process of giving informed consent. This is insensitive to those who are seeking abortions due to rape or incest or to preserve their health, and it interferes in the doctor-patient relationship.

The Heartbeat Bill is only one example of the Ohio Senate’s ongoing war on a woman’s right to choose. For more information on legislation you should know about, check out the Bill Watch at NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio.

The Repeal Hyde art project lets women speak out about the Hyde Amendment. You can participate at http://repealhydeartproject.org.

On September 30, the Hyde Amendment celebrated its 35th year of preventing low-income women from accessing abortion. The Hyde Amendment bans federal dollars from being used to pay for abortion except in the case of rape, incest, or life endangerment of the mother. The way this legislation is enforced varies from state to state, but in most states it creates a significant barrier between women and the services they need.

This legislation has long been opposed by advocates for choice, as it effectively prevents the majority of low-income women from accessing abortion services. Many opponents see it as a direct attack on low-income families that rely on public benefits. When you consider that the Hyde Amendment is traditionally a rider on the yearly legislation that funds those programs, it’s a hard point to ignore.

The public debate over the Hyde Amendment has fired up recently with the  completion of a study of publicly funded abortion. According to the results, which were published in the American Journal of Public Health, the majority of abortions that should qualify for public funding still do not receive it:

“The researchers found that 37 percent of the 1,165 abortions provided for cases of
rape, incest, or life endangerment included in the research were ultimately covered by
Medicaid. The rest were paid by the women themselves, by the abortion providers
or by nonprofit, contribution-based abortion funds.

. . .‘Ibis’ research has shown that in states where abortion coverage is limited
to the Hyde Amendment exceptions, it is extremely challenging for providers to get
reimbursed,’ said Kelly Blanchard, principal investigator of the study and president of
Ibis.”  —On Anniversary Of Funding Ban, Even Allowed Abortions Often Go Unpaid For,
NPR

In other words, if you live in a state that does not provide Medicaid funding for abortion, you may not be able to access state or federal abortion funding—even when you technically qualify for it. This may seem shocking, but it is reality—and it is a reality that advocates for women’s health have been aware of for a long time. The bottom line is that the legislators who write funding bans like the Hyde Amendment may include “compassionate” exceptions to the rule on paper, but don’t support putting them in practice. Medicaid fights the claims, and low-income women end up footing the bill or being forced to carry pregnancies to term because they can not afford the same rights as women of means.

This is where funds like Women Have Options step in. We believe that every woman has the right to make choices about her healthcare, regardless of financial circumstances. We disagree with politicians who feel they have the right to stop women from making those choices, be it through bans on funding, restricting providers and clinics, or contributing to the shame and stigma for those who choose to terminate a pregnancy. We stand in solidarity with our pro-choice allies and will continue to fight for women to have real choices about their health and their bodies. Most importantly, we put our money where our mouth is by providing direct funding to the clients who need it. This is why abortion funds are important, and this is why we need your support!

Don’t let the anniversary of the Hyde Amendment pass without making a stand for choice. Sign the NNAF petition to see this dangerous and shortsighted legislation repealed for good. Call or write your elected representatives and tell them you want abortion funding bans eliminated. And most importantly, keep supporting Women Have Options—because as long as these funding bans exist, we’ll be working hard to keep choice alive for every woman in Ohio!

At the protest on September 20, a local blogger talked to our Board Chair:

Join us from 11:30am-1pm—and if possible wear white—on the 3rd Street side of the statehouse on these dates:
September 20, 21, 27
November 9, 15, 16, 29, 30
December 6, 7, 13, 14

Network for Good
• Click on the “Network for Good” button on our Donate page or click the large Donate Now button anywhere on our website. This will take you directly to WHO/O’s page on the Network for Good website. Click on the “Donate Now” button.
• On the next page, enter the amount you would like to contribute, and under “Donation Preferences,” you can choose to make a recurring donation deducted monthly, quarterly, or annually.

Facebook
• Log in to Facebook and search for “causes” to find the Facebook Causes application. On the application’s homepage, enter “women have options” in the search field to find the WHO/O cause page.
• On our cause page, click the “Donate” button, and then select the amount you would like to give. Recurring donations will be deducted on a monthly basis.

We are excited to see our donor base expanding and thrilled that more activists throughout central Ohio are genuinely enthusiastic about participating in our annual bowl-a-thon and supporting WHO/O.

Nationally, over 300 teams and 5000 contributors in dozens of cities across the country participated in the bowl-a-thon, raising more than $320,000. We are proud that WHO/O bowl-a-thon was #9 in the country for fundraising! Thanks to everyone who planned, donated, fundraised, attended, and secured sponsorships. Together, we made the 2011 bowl-a-thon a tremendous success. Next year, we’ll aim even higher!