Statement of NOW President Terry O’Neill

Women around the country are breathing a sigh of relief today, as Senate Republican leadership’s latest attempt to throw millions off their health insurance, and block women from using Planned Parenthood for their reproductive care, was once again defeated.

Appallingly, Donald Trump responded from the White House with a threatening tweet: “[L]et Obamacare implode, then deal. Watch!”

Indeed, women voters are watching closely. We will hold accountable those politicians who sabotage the Affordable Care Act as well as those who continue trying to repeal it to hand tax cuts to billionaires.

The dark truth is that senators who voted for the “skinny” repeal bill last night were willing to gamble with women’s health and lives, lay them out like chips on a poker table without really knowing what’s coming next. No senator with an ounce of respect for women would take that bet.

And yet so many senators did, even though the stakes are so incredibly high. NOW’s grassroots activists will fight this bill tooth and nail to make sure it never becomes law. And we will do everything in our power to make sure that the senators who gambled on women’s health never serve in elective office again.

Contact
M.E. Ficarra, press@now.org, 951-547-1241

Original Publication: Associated Press, July 2, 2017

Associated Press writes: “A long-time feminist activist whose campaign resume noted that she had an illegal abortion in 1968 has been elected as the new president of the National Organization for Women.

Toni Van Pelt, 69, who has been active for decades in NOW’s Florida affiliates, was elected Saturday night at the organization’s national conference in Orlando, Florida. Elected as vice president was her running mate, Gilda Yazzie, a Navajo Indian from Durango, Colorado.”