Vote, Donate, & Bring a Friend – And Caption This Photo!

Yesterday’s Planned Parenthood of Houston & Southeast Texas Action Fund luncheon, featuring Celinda Lake, was wonderful and infuriating all at once.

Wonderful because being in a room full of people with similar beliefs and ideals always recharges my batteries.

Infuriating because Lake backed up with poll numbers something I intuitively knew, that even though voters overwhelmingly believe abortion should be legal and government should stay out of women’s healthcare decisions, elected officials continue to ignore the issues that voters want them to deal with—the economy, jobs, jobs, and the economy—and keep attacking women’s rights and Planned Parenthood.

To stop these attacks, we must elect representatives who will leave our bodily integrity and reproductive health alone. And quite simply, the way to elect those representatives is to make sure they get more votes than the wingnuts. That means:

1. We have to vote.
2. We have to make sure our friends vote.
3. We have to donate money to candidates we support so they can make sure other people vote for them, too.

Because it takes money, honey, like it or not. Ideas don’t win elections. Money does.

Lake pointed out that while women make the majority of economic decisions in this country, determining how families spend money on cars, electronics, food, and just about everything in numbers greater than men, women only account for 25% of all political contributions.

Vote, donate, and bring a friend. If you’re not sure who to vote for, or where to find out about candidates, allow me to suggest Annie’s List as a resource for pro-choice candidates in Texas.

You must also, of course, sign up for action alerts from Planned Parenthood. You’ll be notified about the issues that come up, over and over, during the legislative session. The action alerts will help show you what’s wrong, and give you facts and figures to share with your friends.

In case you want to save yourself the 1,000 words, give or take, you can always show women this picture of Senator Dan Patrick (R) and Representative Sid Miller (R) glad-handing as they agree to do whatever it takes to get the mandatory transvaginal ultrasound bill to the governor’s desk ASAP:

Photo by Marjorie Kamys Cotera

Because I think we can all agree that this is not the committee any of us want making personal decisions about our health and personal medical choices.

Thanks to Kuff for alerting me to this photo. I think we should have a caption contest. Please leave your suggestions in the comments.

Update: Texas Liberal has an even more astonishing version of the photo, before the rest of the gang got cropped out. 15 men and 2 women … you can’t make this stuff up.