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P.O. Box 279
Helena, MT  59624
406.443.0276
mtchoice@mt.net

 

In the News:

On the Issues:

• Access to Abortion
• Clinic Violence
• Contraception
• Emergency Contraception
• Equal Access to Reproductive Health Care
• RU 486/Mifepristone
• Science and Women's Health
• Sex Education
• Young Women

Talking Openly About Freedom of Choice

For more than 30 years, NARAL Pro-Choice Montana and the NARAL Pro-Choice Montana Foundation have been helping pro-choice Montanans articulate their pro-choice beliefs.  Although the freedom to choose is fundamental to our well-being, it is not a right we can take for granted.  We must talk openly and persuasively about the freedom to choose to ensure its continued vitality. More...

Montana Pro-Choice Photo Gallery

Featured Letters to the Editor:

Billings Gazette - June 12, 2006

Advocate at polling place was inappropriate

At the poll in Vida when voters opened the front door, a man at first appeared to be an election official. Centered at the small entrance, he solicited voters after they entered the polling place. Voters quickly recognized from his campaign signage hanging on the wall and his table of propaganda and petitions that he was not an election official.

All voters had to walk closely around the solicitor's obstruction to locate voting booths. He solicited citizens before and after voting with the agenda to outlaw a woman's right to her body, known as CI-100 or the abortion initiative. The election judge was responsible for allowing this promotion and apparently endorsed the cause.

Voters have the right to come in and vote in peace without being harassed! I strongly suggest enforcing the laws that prohibit all political propaganda and signage within 100 feet of polling places on election days. By forcing registered voters to walk around divisive and volatile propaganda tables, there could have been altercations and possibly worse. To avoid voter outrage and for the safety of officials and voters, please clear passageways of all campaign harassment.

The CI-100 initiative plans to outlaw the option of abortion for women and may outlaw birth control. Note its legislator thinks it should be used to investigate women who suffer miscarriages. This issue, of whether women are allowed to manage their bodies or if the public should manage them, is extremely volatile.

Voting areas are not the place for campaigning.

Ingrid Jensen
Wolf Point

Missoulian - January 8, 2007

Don’t sign the petition

I am frankly appalled and extremely concerned about CI-100, Rep. Rick Jore’s proposed constitutional amendment to define that “life begins at conception.” The truth about this amendment is that it is not about children, but about eliminating women’s health as we know it today. The measure could be used to not only outlaw abortion, but also birth control, stem-cell research and in-vitro fertilization, which is the best hope some couples have to become parents. In addition, Rick Jore publicly stated in the Montana Legislature this past session that he would like to see every woman who has miscarried be investigated for what they could have done to harm the pregnancy. As a woman, I could not even imagine being investigated at such a hard time in my life.

I urge Montanans to see the truth behind the proposed amendment and not sign the petition!

Kristina Datsopoulos, Missoula

Other related Letters

  1. Perverse amendment
  2. C-I 100 is an Insult
  3. Terrible Initiative
  4. Be careful of what you are signing
  5. Proposal would violate privacy – and – Women have right to choose
  6. Amendment would be harmful to women
  7. Constitution Party injects self into women's rights
  8. Constitution Party ballot initiative insults women

 

Helena Independent Record - December 3, 2007
Billings Gazette - December 4 , 2007
Missoulian - December 5, 2007

Rehberg shouldn't ignore women's health issues

I am amazed Rep. Dennis Rehberg has refused to acknowledge the impact the rising cost of birth control will have on the lives of women across the state and nation.

Students across Montana have obtained over 1,100 signatures on a petition asking Congress to fix the problem, which is causing birth control to soar from $20 to $50 a month. Rehberg has chosen to ignore them.

More than 140 members of the House and Senate of both parties are co-sponsoring the Prevention Through Affordable Access Act (HR 4054/S 2347) including Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester. This bill would ensure that family-planning clinics and university health centers can provide affordable birth control to their patients. The fix will not cost the government a dime. Specifically, the legislation makes a technical correction to the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act, which inadvertently prohibits pharmaceutical companies from providing safety net clinics with discounted birth control.

I cannot understand why Rehberg has taken such a lack of interest in the health of Montana women. Numerous citizens, including myself, have asked Rehberg to fix the birth control pricing crisis, only to receive a response that "there is no legislation on the federal level regarding birth control." These responses came days after the Senate bill was introduced and over a week after the House version had been introduced. Rehberg should not ignore women's health issues because he is too afraid to take a solid stand on them. The women of Montana deserve better than that.

Julianna S. Crowley

Membership and Outreach Coordinator
NARAL Pro-Choice Montana
Helena

Billings Gazette
May 20 , 2007

Young adults need good info, not fear

I find the objections of Reps. John Sinrud and Roger Koopman to family planning monies in conflict with the best interest of the state of Montana and the families and folk of Montana. I have worked with families and children for years.

Having spent four years working with young adults, I counseled youth about the myths of unintended pregnancies and supported the message of abstinence. But I also understood that there were going to be young folk who were going to be sexually active. That is just part of our society. I also worked with young folk and middle-aged folk who had had abortions. There was remorse, grief and misunderstanding. All those folk praised the intention of giving accurate, medically based sexual-health information.

Unintended pregnancies are down in Montana, according to dphhs.mt.gov. Education, support and access to birth control will continue to help reduce the numbers of unintended pregnancies. Abstinence is a good message, but as you both know, "single message" tactics rarely work. Please consider the costs to families, the communities of the state and the funding sources that support unintended children.

The rhetoric of these representatives about abortion serves no one. Abortions, infanticide and child abandonment have been around since the beginning.

I hope they both will consider directing their energies and agendas to supporting those folk who need education, not fear tactics. Young people need honest and caring information to make the best decisions.

Russ Hemphill

Queen City News
February 28, 2007

Support Sex Education

I am confused.

Montana Right to Life and other anti-choice organizations such as Eagle Forum and the Montana Family Foundation testified Wednesday before the House Human Services Committee against HB 612, a bill that would create funding for comprehensive sex education. I thought Montana Right to Life and their associates were anti-abortion. Yet they support keeping kids in the dark about pregnancy prevention?

Instead of opposing this bill, these anti-abortion groups should be working to promote common-sense proposals taht will prevent unintended pregnancy. They should be rallying for -DEMANDING- programs that reduce the need for abortion such as increased family-planning services and comprehensive sex education for our teens. Or could it be that these so-called anti-abortion organizations are less about preventing abortion and more about promoting a political agenda?

Prevention is common ground. A 2004 survey by National Public Radio found that 94 percent of Americans support comprehensive sex education. I call on the oppostion of this bill to come together and work with reproductive rights groups on prevention bills such as this one.

Alison James

NARAL Pro-Choice Montana
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