Dear Friend,

As you may already know, last week 272 members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted for an unconstitutional and unconscionable ban on a medical procedure that is a last-resort health-saving measure for thousands of women each year. Unbelievably, this bill doesn't even make an exception for cases where a woman's health and reproductive future are in danger.

The so-called "partial-birth abortion" ban, if it makes it through one last vote in the Senate in the next 10 days, will be signed by George W. Bush with great fanfare as a reward for his radical religious right supporters. A safe—and until now legal—medical procedure will be criminalized.

Even Senators who call themselves pro-choice are being bullied into supporting the bill, and we need your help to mount an Emergency Action to raise an outcry over this unprecedented attack on our right to safe and legal abortion.

Our brave ally, Senator Barbara Boxer, despite her upcoming re-election campaign, successfully attached an amendment in the Senate to the bogus "Partial-Birth Abortion" bill, affirming the language and validity of Roe v. Wade. But the House/Senate conference committee gleefully stripped it away. Boxer may have one more chance to salvage this important statement IF enough Senators support her threatened filibuster.

Please help NOW take emergency action to get the word out to the communities represented by members of Congress who think they know more than doctors what is medically necessary for women. We need your help to mount a massive public response against this vicious and dangerous bill. We must counteract the lies and deception upon which this legislation is based. Please lend your support to our campaign and then forward this message to everyone on your e-mail list.

If we raise $250,000 in the next 3 days we can use advanced telephone patch-through technology to flood Senate offices at home and in D.C. with a barrage of phone calls all day and faxes all night. With your help, we can reach out to activists in states represented by key Senators and demand that they vote against and even filibuster this bill which undermines our basic right to safe, legal abortion.

Once the vote is over—win or lose—we'll send materials and assistance to our grassroots chapters in districts across the country and organize truth-telling missions to help voters in pivotal congressional districts understand what their own representatives are prepared to do to placate the radical right. Voters—and women voters in particular—need to know that this bill undermines their fundamental rights and threatens the health of women and girls all over the country. Your help today will make it possible for us get to work immediately.

It's not too late to take action. $250,000 will allow us to send a powerful message to every key Senator in the next 7 days and then to organize in the districts of our 272 House opponents to make sure their constituents know exactly what's at stake.

We can put the Senate on notice that we will remember this vote next November. We can start right now training and supporting local activists in identifying, educating and mobilizing women's rights supporters in their communities who will stand with us in next year's elections.

We won't let them get away with it. Please send your contribution of $35 or $50 or $100—whatever you can afford—to NOW. We'll put it to work immediately.

And then send this e-mail to everyone on your e-mail list who cares about preserving the right of every woman to safe, legal, accessible abortion and contraception.

For equality and justice,

Kim Gandy
President
National Organization for Women

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