Melissa Kogut's Statement on the March on Washington
Synopsis: NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts leads the charge to mobilize pro-choice supporters to march on Washington.
STATEMENT OF MELISSA KOGUT,
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF NARAL PRO-CHOICE MASSACHUSETTS AND CHAIR OF THE MASSACHUSETTS COALITON FOR CHOICE
ON NATIONAL PRO-CHOICE MARCH IN APRIL 2004
Welcome. My name is Melissa Kogut. I am the Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts (formerly Mass NARAL) and Chair of the Massachusetts Coalition for Choice.
I am proud to stand here today with some of the nation’s most prominent national pro-choice leaders to say that on April 25, 2004 we will go to the nation’s capital for a pro-choice march of historic proportions!
With an anti-choice President and Congress, a woman’s right to choose hangs by a thin thread. If President Bush succeeds in adding just one anti-choice Justice to the Supreme Court, it is all but certain that Roe will be overturned and the right to choose will be no longer.
Our best hope to protect reproductive freedom is to mobilize hundreds of thousands of pro-choice people from across the country who believe that women – not the government – should be able to make deeply private decisions about their reproductive lives.
From the Boston Tea Party onward, American history has been shaped at critical moments by masses of citizens who came together to speak truth to power. In 1992, the right to choose hung in the balance. We marched, we organized, and remember what happened in 1992. We elected a pro-choice President and preserved the fundamental rights to privacy and equality. With your help, we cannot be stopped.
We face a dire threat. But we know that the majority of Americans are with us. But we also know that too many people do not believe the threat to their reproductive freedom is real. That is why we need to march. And that is why we will bring the largest delegation ever from Massachusetts to march for our civil rights in Washington DC on April 25th.
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