This is an excerpt of a speech by Kendra Vincent, who spoke representing National Women’s Liberation, given on March 8 at the Democratic Women’s Club Luncheon at the Best Western in Gainesville. NWL was asked to speak about Amendment 4 and abortion. Representative Angie Nixon was the keynote speaker and Representative Yvonne Hayes Hinson also spoke.
National Women’s Liberation is a feminist group for cis and trans women and trans people who do not benefit from male supremacy who want to fight back and build a mass movement for our liberation.
We believe the inequalities and injustices we face due to male supremacy, white supremacy, and capitalism are political problems requiring a collective solution. We believe that change comes from the actions of everyday people. And this is one of the many reasons we organized a coalition and helped lead on Amendment 4 in Gainesville.
Constitutional amendments organized by the people and voted on by the people are extremely democratic. Over 200 grassroots organizations worked on this amendment from May of 2023 through election day. Abortion and reproductive rights are necessary in order to have true freedom. If we do not have bodily autonomy we are not free. Roe was never enough, and neither was this amendment, but it was a step in the right direction, and it would have provided a lot of relief not just in Florida but in the South.
Where do we go from here?
One: We don’t give up. We don’t let them overwhelm us. We step up when someone else has to step back. We build a stronger community. We remember that movement work is a marathon, not a sprint.
Two: We must stay informed with accurate information. Both PlanCPills.com and Progress Florida host trainings on using the abortion pill at home with the idea of helping people become a community resource. PlanCPills.com is a great resource for abortion and abortion pills with information by state. On a smaller scale, people can order the abortion pill, which has a long shelf life. One trusted resource to order abortion pills is Aid Access which was one of the international leaders in expanding abortion pills for self-managed abortions.
Three: We keep pressure on the institutions that are supposed to work for us. Florida Senate Bill 870 would repeal the 6 week ban, so we can lobby for this bill to move forward and pass. House Bill 1205 (which had its first subcommittee hearing on Thursday) and the companion bill in the senate which will be heard by the ethics committee on Monday, would further restrict the ballot initiative process. If we want citizen-led amendments, we must work to stop this bill. These are bills that need to be brought to the public’s attention. We need to add these bills to every phone call or email folks are already making — both to the legislatures and to supporters and group members. They must be included as important issues for lobbying and at rallies and protests. But we can’t just focus on Florida. We must fight any attempts for a federal abortion ban as well.
These are mostly defensive tactics. These are reactionary. We also need to stay on the offensive — to do more than just hold the line; we need to always push for more.
So, how do we do this? One is to begin reorganizing around the abortion amendment. We would be in good company because both medicaid and marijuana amendments have already started organizing. We would have existing infrastructure and contacts from the last campaign as well as the lessons learned. However, we need a large organization, like Planned Parenthood, to step up again to lead this fight. People and groups are ready to work and be the boots on the ground, but we need the infrastructure and the funding if we are going to be successful.
Another possibility is to fight for the Abortion Pill to be available over the counter. The FDA has extra regulations on the Abortion Pill — Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy or REMS. There are plenty of doctors that have argued that these REMS are unjustified and unnecessary and the data supporting this only increased during the height of the COVID pandemic.
While more research is needed, so far abortion pills meet the FDA’s own criteria for an over the counter medication, and is safer than Tylenol and Viagra. It is important to go for what we really want. We want free, safe, and legal abortions everywhere for anyone who needs one. If we fought for abortion pills to be over the counter, we would be making huge strides in this direction. National Women’s Liberation led the fight for the Morning After Pill to be over the counter, which we won in 2013 after a ten year long campaign. We believe the many lessons we learned during that campaign apply to fighting for the abortion pill as well, including a consciousness raising strategy and demanding full access for all ages.
We must utilize the powerful feminist lessons we have learned over the years: We must use the word abortion and not talk about it like it is a regrettable last option. Abortion is health care. Consciousness raising is a powerful tool. Everyday people’s lived experiences are important and our stories can make a difference.
When we make bold demands covering everyone, we gain more ground. White women must stop seeing ourselves as privileged helpers of the more oppressed and fight alongside women of color against our common oppressors. Women and trans people can also be strong allies in the fight for bodily autonomy. The power structure wants to divide us, but we know we are powerful when we unite and work together. We need to understand that the power structure is worried about the birth rate, and instead of giving us incentives to make parenting more attractive like they have in most other industrialized countries with paid parental leave and universal child care, here, they have chosen coercion by taking away our reproductive rights. They want our reproductive labor, and they want it as cheap as possible. We will continue to demand more!