Dear John, 

Last week, the Portland City Council made the news for being the first city in the nation to grant a bereavement leave for women who have suffered any kind of pregnancy loss (miscarriage, stillbirth, etc). They specifically also included abortion.

This is a big step in the right direction (shockingly). Portland is acknowledging what post-abortive women have been saying all along: that abortion hurts. It hurts women and it hurts families. And it also ends lives. Lives that deserve to be grieved.

We've known this at Oregon Right to Life for a long, long time. And we have been taking steps of our own. It's time to really organize our communities to provide support for women so that they don't feel that abortion is their only option. So they don't need the bereavement leave in the first place.

A major first step for organizing these communities was hiring a full-time program manager. Thanks to all of our donors, we've done that. Caila started last week.

I'm going to lay out some of our plans in my next email on Thursday. In the meantime, would you please consider becoming a monthly donor? This is going to be a long project and monthly donors sustain our work with their consistent support.

Because women deserve an advocate,

Lois Anderson
Executive Director

I've included a picture of Caila (above), our new community outreach program manager!