Dear MoveOn member,

If you are outraged and worried as hell that Republicans in Arizona have
resurrected a total abortion ban from 1864, this email is for you.

In 1864, white girls and women were considered the property of their
husbands or fathers, rape was not a crime, and women could not vote.^1

William Claude Jones, the lawmaker behind the 1864 abortion ban, was
married to a 12-year-old girl when he passed the law, just weeks away from
marrying a 15-year-old girl, and a few years later would marry a
14-year-old girl.^2

And making abortion illegal is just the first harrowing step—in Arizona,
other red states, and nationwide if Donald Trump wins in November. MAGA
leaders are now openly talking about making birth control illegal, banning
interstate travel by women and girls, repealing the 19th Amendment—which
gave women the right to vote—and even ending no-fault divorce.^3,4,5,6

John, more could not be at stake in November's election. We
have to fight back with everything we've got and defeat MAGA politicians,
and we have something you can do right now to help.

Next week, MoveOn is organizing house parties across the country, where
people will come together to write postcards—focused on the loss of legal
abortion, bodily autonomy, and self-determination—to targeted voters in
key states. At a time when confidence in the media and institutions is at
an all-time low, this personal outreach is more important than ever.

Our biggest cost to pull off the house parties, after paying our
organizing staff, is postage. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is raising
stamp prices for the fifth time in three years, and the postage to send
tens of thousands of handwritten postcards to voters will be expensive.^7



Can you chip in $5 a month to MoveOn to help us buy a roll
of stamps now and each month through Election Day?

[ [link removed] ]Yes, I'll chip in monthly.

[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.



So here's the plan for house parties, and where rolls and rolls of stamps
come in.

Our data team has identified the key voters who are essential to win in
November. These are "surge" voters who became active for the first time
after Trump won the 2016 election, but they do not vote consistently. If
they vote, they'll very likely vote for Democrats, so the question is
whether they will vote.

That's where MoveOn comes in. We're shipping custom-printed postcards with
messaging about how abortion rights and access are under attack and with
the names and mailing addresses of these hand-picked voters on them.

At these house parties, MoveOn members will handwrite notes to these
voters, expressing the power they have in this election and what's on the
line—which research shows will help boost actual turnout in November!

And hosts just have to drop the completed cards in the mail. When they do,
the postage will automatically be charged to MoveOn, because we're not
asking the MoveOn members taking the time to write these cards to also pay
for them at the same time.

Each stamp costs $0.55, which isn't all that much per voter. But when you
scale it up to hundreds of thousands of voters, that's where it becomes
pricey.

Let's say there are 10 people at a house party in a MoveOn member's living
room, making their hands sore by writing personalized messages to voters.
If each of them writes 40 postcards, that's 400 voters we can reach. But
that's also 400 pieces of postage we need to cover—and there will be house
parties all over the country! That's the math we need in order to reach
enough voters to win.



It's a small price to pay to reach these voters, keep Trump out of the
White House, and make sure there is no MAGA majority in either house of
Congress to ban abortion nationally. Will you chip in $5
monthly to help pay for stamps this month and every month through Election
Day?

[ [link removed] ]Yes, I'll chip in monthly.

[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.



Let's be clear: People are going to suffer terribly as a result of
Arizona's total abortion ban.

The Arizona Supreme Court's decision read, "[P]hysicians are now on notice
that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman's life, are
illegal."^8

That means people who are raped will not be able to have abortions in
Arizona. That means pregnant people who face very serious, but perhaps not
life-ending, complications will not be able to have abortions in Arizona.
And the list of people who will be harmed goes on. And on.

Arizona's Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes called the decision
"unconscionable and an affront to freedom."^9

President Joe Biden called the ruling "a result of the extreme agenda of
Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women's
freedom."^10

Of course, a day earlier, Donald Trump once again took credit for
overturning Roe v. Wade and said abortion should be left to the states.^11
States like Arizona.

It is not the 1800s, John. We must fight back. But so many
people will sit out this election if we don't connect with them, because
they don't think their voice matters.

Those are the voters we're writing to at our house parties next week, and
we'll reach out to those very same voters on the phone, through
door-to-door canvasses, and through vote tripling over the coming months
to help convince them that their vote is essential and then to turn them
out to vote on Election Day.



Will you help us send handwritten postcards to tens of thousands of
targeted voters by chipping in $5 a month to MoveOn?

[ [link removed] ]Yes, I'll chip in monthly.

[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.



Thanks for all you do.

–Mohammad, Ankur, Mona, Isbah, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "Arizona supreme court upholds 1864 law banning almost all abortions,"
The Guardian, April 9, 2024
[link removed]

2. "Meet the 'pursuer of nubile young females' who helped pass Arizona's
1864 abortion law," The Washington Post, April 10, 2024
[link removed]

3. "Justice Thomas: SCOTUS 'should reconsider' contraception, same-sex
marriage rulings," Politico, June 24, 2022
[link removed]

4. "The unconstitutional plan to stop women from traveling out of state
for an abortion, explained," Vox, September 12, 2023
[link removed]

5. "BlazeTV co-host: The 19th Amendment 'should be repealed,'" Media
Matters for America, November 16, 2023
[link removed]

6. "The Coming Attack on an Essential Element of Women's Freedom," The
Atlantic, September 26, 2023
[link removed]

7. "Post Office wants to hike stamp prices for 5th time in 3 years to make
up for 'defective' pricing system," Fortune, April 9, 2024
[link removed]

8. "Read the Arizona Supreme Court's Abortion Ruling," The New York Times,
April 9, 2024
[link removed]

9. "Arizona Supreme Court lifts stay on 1864 territorial law, banning
nearly all abortions," Arizona's Family, April 9, 2024
[link removed]

10. Ibid.

11. "Trump's Abortion Announcement," Abortion, Every Day, April 8, 2024
[link removed]

 



Want to support MoveOn's work? The MAGA movement's book bans have forced
teachers and librarians across the country to remove books from their
shelves and censor what young people can learn. MoveOn is fighting back,
including by filling a "Banned Bookmobile" with books that the far right
has banned and driving it to key cities and towns to raise the visibility
of book bans, hand out banned books for free, and bring people together to
stop censorship. To keep up the fight against book bans and the MAGA
politicians who support them, we need your help.

Will you start a monthly gift to power and sustain MoveOn's critical
work? 



[ [link removed] ]Yes, I'll chip in $5 a month.

[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.





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