Registration Open for SisterLove's HLYASS

Got Reproductive Justice?

Join SisterLove, Inc. for our annual youth conference, HLYASS! HLYASS, or Healthy Love Youth Advocacy Summer Summit is August 17-23. Due to effects of Covid-19, the summit this year will be virtual in order to protect attendees and speakers. We ensure that the Summit will still be engaging and informative and hope you will attend!

Registration is now open! Youth ages 16-25 can register for FREE by going here https://www.hlyass.org/register-for-hlyass.

We are still accepting PROPOSALS. Do you have a topic related to Policy and Advocacy? Healthy Relationships? Organizing for Power? Submit here

Questions? Email: [email protected]

Edit this section of copy to tell your supporters how their action will help ignite change. Use stories, quotes, data, and other inspiring content to capture their attention and get them to act.

SisterLove Advocacy Actions!

Tell Your Reps to Protect Title X!

Clinics across the United States that provide family planning rely on Title X grants, which allow them to offer services to patients on a sliding, income-based scale. Title X grants cover a broad array of services that are considered "family planning," including contraceptive services, supplies, and information; breast and cervical cancer screenings; and STI prevention, testing, and treatment.

In mid 2019, the Trump Administration instituted a nationwide gag rule on Title X funding. The new rule prioritizes natural family planning and abstinence, especially for adolescents, and imposes new barriers to abortion access. This rule is incredibly harmful and during a time when many people have lost their jobs and employee sponsored health insurance, affordable family planning is necessary. Many clinics have been forced to take less patients due to cost or shut down completely.

Fill out this form to tell your representatives to reverse these changes and protect Title X

Contact Your Reps to Vote YES on the Global HER Act!

The global gag rule, recently reinstated by the Trump Administration, is an unjust policy that disrupts the provision of reproductive health services abroad by blocking U.S. global health assistance to all foreign nongovernmental organizations that use their own funding to engage in abortion-related services or advocacy. The Global Health, Empowerment and Rights (HER) Act is a necessary bill that that would reverse and prohibit the Global Gag Rule and prevent any future president from reinstating the rule.

The global gag rule is incredibly harmful for hundreds of NGOs and for thousands of people who rely on their services. The global gag rule results in increased unintended and high-risk pregnancies, unsafe abortions and maternal deaths, and harms efforts to combat HIV and other sexually-transmitted infections (STIs).

During this period where access to adequate health care is paramount, the global gag rule puts more lives at risk. By filling out this form you can ask your representatives to vote for the Global HER Act to stop the global gag rule and prevent any future president from reinstating it.

Georgia Legislative Session

The Georgia Legislative Session, known for its notoriously short calendar, has halted movement on important legislation impacting the overall health and well-being of Georgians across the state. On March 13, members of the Georgia General Assembly decided to indefinitely suspend the Georgia state legislative session. While we applaud the members for their decision to suspend all legislative activities as an effort to safeguard their health and that of the public, we are concerned about the politicization of a public health emergency to serve the interests of a select few. We want to ensure that bills that harm our community do not get passed while we are barred from being at the capitol. We have created a create tool for you to easily contact your reps regarding these bills. Check HERE, to send message to your senators and representatives.

Support HB 719. This bill will update Georgia's scientifically outdated HIV criminalization laws and attempt to ensure that only those who intend to transmit HIV will be prosecuted. SisterLove has been pushing for this bill all session and we are happy it has passed the house and moved onto the Senate assignment committee. We want to protect all those who have HIV and to ensure they are criminalized for their statue.
Oppose SB 463. This bill would increase confusion about polling places, and create even longer lines and waiting times to vote. We should be doing everything we can to increase voter participation, not making it harder. Action: Call your House representative and tell them to “Vote NO on HB 463.”
Oppose HB 994. This bill would allow children suspected of gang activity to be tried as adults. Action: Call your House representative and tell them to “Vote NO on HB 994.”

Census 2020

Every 10 years the U.S. government conducts a nationwide census. The census is incredibly important for you and your community, because the results of the 2020 Census will affect community funding, congressional representation, and more. If the population of our community is undercounted we may lose funding for our schools, roads, and other necessities and we may lose representatives in Congress. The census is completely anonymous and you will not be penalized due to your living situation, immigration status, etc. There is NO immigration status question on the census. Although the official day to complete the census was April 1st, you can continue to fill it out throughout the summer.

You should have received a census form in the mail. You can also fill out the census here.

Partner Organization Updates

Positive Women Network (PWN) Call to Action: Tell Congress We Need Complete Data on How COVID-19 is Impacting Communities of Color!

PWN is calling on Congress to release all of the information on how COVID-19 impacts our communities. Accurate, reliable information is essential to keeping ourselves and our families safe; to knowing what folks need to survive and thrive; and to holding our government accountable when it doesn’t get us those things. 

Public health crises tend to exacerbate pre-existing health and economic inequities. Data from amfAR show that although only about one in five U.S. counties are disproportionately Black, Black counties account for 58 percent of COVID-19 deaths. Data – with proper privacy protections, broken down by race, ethnicity, sex, and more -- is an important tool in responding to these inequities with policies that prioritize the people who are most impacted.

The national data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), however, has been grossly incomplete. Race and ethnicity data is missing for nearly 60 percent of CDC-reported cases, and does not exist for testing or treatment statistics. 

There’s a bill in the U.S. Congress, the Equitable Data Collection and Disclosure Act, that would fix that problem. It would require the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to collect and publicly report coronavirus testing, treatment, and mortality data by race, ethnicity, sex, age, socioeconomic status, and disability status (among other things). It also requires all necessary privacy protections. We need this information to craft informed policies grounded in racial justice and to hold the government’s feet to the fire when they fail our communities. Accountability is a lot harder in the dark.  

The House has included key provisions addressing the need for disaggregated data in their version of the fourth coronavirus package, the Heroes Act. That’s great! But they could go further by including other aspects, such as express privacy protections, and so should the Senate.

Help PWN shine a light on what’s happening to our communities by telling our Congressional leaders to include and pass the Equitable Data Collection and Disclosure Act with the fourth coronavirus relief package! 

You can contact your members of Congress HERE

In the News

Supreme Court Updates!

Two important Supreme Court cases were heard last week that affect the work of SisterLove and the fight for reproductive Justice.

USAID v. Alliance For Open Society International, Inc.

In 2003, Congress passed the "United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act," which has provided billions of dollars to fund efforts to combat HIV/AIDS overseas. The law requires that organizations receiving funds must “have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.” In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that nongovernmental organizations based in the United States would not need to make such policy because it would violate their First Amendment rights. This case now asks whether the government can force the requirement against the foreign affiliates of the same U.S.-based NGOs, or does that also violate the First Amendment.

This case is incredibly important for many organizations that operate around the world that rely on this funding, including SisterLove's South Africa Office. This funding helps protects millions of people around the world who are either at risk of contracting HIV or are currently living with HIV. However, organizations should not be forced to make these statements in order receive this necessary funding. By forcing an organization to make a statement "against prostitution," those who do engage in sex work may feel uncomfortable or unsafe receiving services at the organization or that they cannot be honest about their sexual history, which is incredibly necessary to understand someone's risk at contracting HIV.

We hope that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of the nongovernmental organizations. We will keep you updated on this case.

Trump v. PA

The Trump administration recently issued new rules that would allow private employers with religious or moral objections to opt out of providing birth control coverage for their employees without any notice. Pennsylvania and New Jersey have filed cases against this act, arguing that they violate both the Affordable Care Act and the federal laws governing administrative agencies.

SisterLove, Inc., National Women’s Law Center, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, National Asian and Pacific Islander Women along with the support of 50 organizations, filed an amicus brief for the case Trump v. Pennsylvania (consolidated with Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania). The brief warned that religious and moral exemptions to covering essential preventive contraceptive methods and related education, counseling, and services stand to undermine the autonomy of women and people who can get pregnant to decide if, when, and how they want to experience a pregnancy. We want to make sure the Court fully understands the devastating harm the rules would have on real people around the country, especially those facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination.

To read more about this upcoming Supreme Court case and about the brief we filed, check out our post on the SisterLove blog!

If you have had an issue with getting your birth control due to the Trump Administration's moral and religious exceptions, we want to hear from you! Share your birth control experience with us so we can be better advocates.

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