Abortion Rights Freedom Ride 2014: GROUND ZERO TEXAS

Abortion Rights Freedom Ride 2014:
GROUND ZERO TEXAS

Minneapolis 2013 MN

Seattle WA 2014

San Francisco CA 2014

Austin TX 2014

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Freedom Rider

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I want to JOIN THE RIDE for part or all of August. I want to donate or help raise funds to make this Freedom Ride a huge success. I am in Texas and want to house activists sometime during the month of August. I can help mobilize people that I know in Texas. I want to spread the message through social media. I want host a viewing party for one or more of the four national webcasts. I want to take to the streets during the WEEK OF DEFIANCE August 25 - September 1.

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Overview:

The Abortion Rights Freedom Ride 2014: GROUND ZERO TEXAS is a fight to turn the tide in the all-out assault on women's right to abortion and birth control.

In 2011, Texas had 46 clinics; by September 1st there are likely to be only six left. Nation-wide, hundreds of laws restricting abortion have been passed in recent years. Six states have only one abortion clinic left.

THIS MUST BE RESISTED AND REVERSED! Without access to safe abortion, women die from dangerous, illegal abortions and many more are forced to bear children they don't want, foreclosing their lives and dreams.

Throughout the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride, through the People's Hearings, through dramatic and determined protest, through mass participation throughout Texas and around the country, and through a nation-wide Week of Defiance August 25 – Sept 1st, a huge leap can and must be made in forging the kind of mass independent political resistance that can turn the tide.

A Time for Courage and Daring

Courageous people are doing important work to keep abortion available. At the same time, it must be confronted soberly: much more is needed.

What happens this summer in Texas will affect women everywhere. It is the responsibility of everyone who does not want to see women forced to have children against their will to stand up and fight. Not some time in the future, but now.

Starting July 30, volunteers will travel through Texas, joining with people in Texas and around the country to stand up in mass, independent political resistance.

We draw inspiration from the original Freedom Riders because of their willingness to put everything on the line to stop a horrible injustice that millions had grown to accept as “just the way things are.” At stake today is whether women - one half of humanity - will be legally treated as less than full human beings.

SIGN ON to this essential effort (right) and find out more (below).

Click the image above to see the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride 2013 Report, from the Freedom Ride that went through the (then) 5 states that had only one abortion clinic left.

The Vision

Mission.

Draw a line in Texas this summer. Through our mass resistance we must change the political calculations of the courts and politicians so that they do not feel they can get away with any more clinic closures. We must create a political situation where they fear that any negative ruling will not only inflame resistance, defiance and protest, but will also undermine their legitimacy in the eyes of millions. And we must do so in a way that begins to turn the tide in this fight nationally.

Strategy.

Forge a national strategic counter-offensive to what is a national war on women.
Radically reset the political, moral, and ideological terms of this fight so that millions understand that this fight is about women’s liberation or women’s enslavement.
Mobilize all people of conscience to wage massive, independent, political resistance. Relying on politicians, and the courts, has not halted the barrage of attacks.

More thinking on this strategy...

Abortion Rights are at a Crossroads: This is NOT a Time to Lay Low - It is Time for Massive, Uncompromising Struggle!
by David Gunn, Jr. and Sunsara Taylor

Video (below): Abortion Rights Freedom Ride 2013: Rally in Fargo

Three Elements.

The Ride will consist of three major components, which synergize with and strengthen each other:

A Statement signed by people from many walks of life, including major luminaries, artists, public figures, religious leaders, etc. which recasts the moral and political terms and the thinking of millions.
Nationally Web-Cast "People's Hearing" - public speak outs in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and the Rio Grande Valley which draw out the true dimensions of the emergency. People do not know of clinic closures, scope, or stakes. Combine mass testimony from before Roe and from today, the breadth of a wide-range of community leaders and health care providers, and the prominence of well-known individuals.
Confrontational, dramatic, non-violent political protest that delivers the verdict of these hearings to appropriate individuals/institutions. Protesters will brandish bloody coat-hangers, images of the women who died from illegal abortions, and shackles representing female enslavement.

While people are encouraged to take part in all three components (click any of the above to find out more), individuals can meaningfully take in one of them without being ready to take part in all of them.

On the ground day to day the Freedom Riders will do mass outreach with tens of thousands of stickers, palm cards, coat hangers, and DIY instructions, collect stories, stage flash protests, conduct media work, blog, release videos and involve growing numbers of people on the ground and throughout the country in waging this fight in ways big and small. This will culminate in a...