NIRH Unveiled New Abortion Strategy at 2024 Champions of Choice Awards Luncheon
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 8, 2024
Contact: [email protected]
Movement leaders and honorees gathered to embrace bold action at ideas-summit fundraiser
New York, NY – Today, hundreds of advocates, providers, and movement leaders joined the National Institute for Reproductive Health (NIRH) and its Action Fund (NIRH AF) to celebrate the organizations’ new reproductive freedom blueprint in an ideas-summit luncheon. Embracing a new framework of advocacy, NIRH and its Action Fund are doubling down on their unapologetic strategy to champion expansive strategies that go far beyond the Roe framework.
NIRH and NIRH AF will focus on three key areas in its work to build a new generation of advocacy – policy change, culture change, and building grassroots power in service to policies that leave no person behind. NIRH will conduct robust research to modernize how we talk about abortion, birth justice, and contraception. NIRH AF will invest in innovative policies like the New York Equal Rights Amendment, which will protect all pregnant people from surveillance, discrimination, and criminalization. And both organizations re-committed to shifting power to grassroots advocates who are working in community to center principles of justice and equity in their advocacy.
Statement from Haydee Morales, executive vice president, National Institute for Reproductive Health and National Institute for Reproductive Health Action Fund: “We were thrilled to host this powerhouse gathering of advocates, activists, and philanthropists. The tides are turning in the fight for reproductive freedom, and we are embracing a new generation of advocacy with bold champions to fight alongside us. Champions of Choice is a celebration of this community and our collective fight for reproductive freedom and liberation.”
Notable guests and honorees included hosts Lizz Winstead (comedian, radio/television personality, activist, podcast host) and Joyelle Johnson (award nominated standup comedian, actress, writer, activist); Lawrence B. Benenson (Philanthropist, received the Power of Philanthropy Award); Pamela Merritt, (Executive Director of Medical Students for Choice, received the Andrea N. Miller Fighting Forward Award); and Dr. Colleen McNicholas DO, MSCI, FACOG (Abortion Care Provider, received the Fearless Provider Award).
The annual Champions of Choice event supports NIRH and NIRH AF, trailblazing national organizations dedicated to fighting for proactive state and local reproductive health, rights, and justice policies. Despite abortion bans at some point in pregnancy across 41 states and the escalating criminalization of pregnant individuals, the fight for reproductive rights continues unabated. As the anti-abortion movement persists, so do NIRH and NIRH AF. A new era of national advocacy demands unwavering determination and increased public visibility in the pursuit of fair and equitable reproductive freedom.
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NIRH & NIRH ACTION FUND
The National Institute for Reproductive Health (NIRH) and the National Institute for Reproductive Health Action Fund (NIRH Action Fund) are advocacy groups that fight to protect and advance access to just and equitable reproductive healthcare and build political power for reproductive freedom. We do this by working hand-in-hand with reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations in states and cities across the country to build coalitions, launch campaigns, change policy, and elect candidates who stand up for everyone’s right to control their reproductive lives. For more than four decades, our strategy has been to go on the offensive to pass laws that safeguard reproductive freedom. We work in the communities where change is needed, so the fabric of reproductive freedom becomes harder to tear apart.