This month 300 women  began the twelfth voyage of an organization called eXXpedition.  Leaders from very diverse backgrounds, these women are about to be divided into smaller groups who will each take legs of a 38,000 – nautical – mile trip around the world.   This voyage is lengthier than the previous eleven but the purpose is the same: raise awareness of, and explore solutions to, the devastating environmental and health impacts of single-use plastics and toxic pollution in the world’s oceans.  If measures are not taken to reverse this pollution, it is estimated that by 2050 the amount of plastic in the ocean will out-weigh fish.

Dr. Lucy Gilliam was working at the U.K.’s Department for Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and Emily Penn had spent several years on environmental science missions at sea when they met in 2011 at a panel on oceanic plastic pollution at the Royal Geographic Society in London.  They were there because of their concerns about the potential health impact of toxic chemicals in the environment.  In 2014 they founded eXXpedition.  That same year they set out on their first voyage from Lanzarote, Spain, to Martinique in the Caribbean.

While plastics are an environmental issue, the women say, it is also very much a women’s issues.  The plastics are endocrine disruptors.  They mimic female hormones.  These chemicals have been proven to cause early puberty in girls and to interfere with hormones during pregnancy.

Public awareness and motivation to clean up the problem is their focus but they do conduct scientific studies. They collect water samples to test for plastic and microplastics (any fragments smaller than one-fifth of an inch across), as well as free floating toxic chemicals from detergents, pesticides, pharmaceuticals. They create footage and findings for film and media outreach once the group is back on dry land. And they talk, sharing skills and ideas for how to tackle the problems facing the environment.

Tampa Bay Abortion Fund Board of Directors

Three total strangers met in 2017, aghast at the state of civil rights in this country.  

We shared some commonalities - we grew up fighting for civil rights. We marched for equal pay, abortion access, LGBTQ rights, and gender equity in the 1970s, 80’s, 90s, 00s, and, yes, in 2017 after the inauguration of 45.

Nothing much had changed since we started advocating in the 1970s: out of our circle of high school friends, about one in four had an abortion; women earned 64 cents for every dollar a man earned; workplace harassment was commonplace.

Fast forward to our meeting in 2017: white women were making around 80 cents per every dollar a man made (women of color weren’t even close); the me-too movement was around the corner; and our daughters, nieces, and neighbors rights to choose were in even greater peril than ours were in the 70s, despite technology making the procedure safer than removing a wisdom tooth.

So, how did we three go from being civil rights advocates to becoming abortion funders?

We realized after decades of marching, signing petitions, and calling our congress people on the issues we cared about that we needed a new approach. We wanted to have a direct impact on the vulnerable women and girls in our neighborhood. To empower them. To support them.

We decided to directly fund abortions.

We started with writing checks to our neighborhood abortion clinic with donations of $5 to $20 received from our like-minded family, friends and neighbors. In two months, we had raised $1,000 – enough to help a handful of women who could not afford their procedure.

We established a relationship with the women who run the clinic so that they would call when a homeless woman, a battered woman, or a woman with insufficient funds came across their door. No questions asked, no need to know details, we just wrote a check.

Within a couple of months, the administration at the local domestic violence shelters had our phone number. A few months later, our name was on the street and calls started coming in directly from women in need.

Thanks to our small network, we never had to say no to a request. One time we came close – we were down to $495 in our fund and a request for a procedure came in for $675. We were less than $200 short – but that was enough to delay the woman’s procedure.  We started the drive to the clinic – just four miles away - after putting the word out on our Reproductive Health Facebook page that we were short. By the time we arrived at the clinic, we had pledges for the entire amount.

As more women found us, we realized we had to diversify our funding. Dipping into the same pockets of friends, family and neighbors could only get us so far, no matter how much they supported us and a woman’s right to choose. We began presenting our mission at local Rotary meetings, NOW meetings, to like-minded corporate donors and family foundations. We lucked out in finding a passionate volunteer event planner who created some amazing fundraisers

We found a whole new network.

 In one year, we tripled in size.

We three strangers went from helping a handful of women in our neighborhood to funding abortions in three counties, at seven independent clinics and with the support of hundreds in our community – all in less than two years.

If we can do it, so can you.

For more information on the Tampa Bay Abortion Fund’s journey, contact our volunteer media coordinator, Lily Wright, at tampabayabortionfund@gmail.com, 727.314.3956 and follow us on Facebook.com/TBAFund/

Addendum A        2019:

1.  One in four women in the US will or have had an abortion.

2.  77% of people in the US support a woman’s right to choose.

3.  Women most adversely affected by abortion restrictions are
      low income and/or women of color.

4.  60% of abortions are conducted by independent clinics.

Addendum B   Who do we help?

"I'm a single mother of two - a 3-year-old and at the time an 8-month-old. I found out I was pregnant in the beginning of January and felt like I was in an impossible situation. My hands are completely full. I'm mentally, physically and emotionally drained and barely making ends meet. I was faced with making the most difficult decision of my life, a position I never in a million years I thought I would be in, especially since I thought we were being careful. TBAF helped me at my most vulnerable time. When no one else could help me, they did. I will be forever grateful to them and their services." 

Sincerely, CG 2019

Addendum C

Don’t think you can start a fund? So, what CAN you do?

Work with your local clinic/shelter to:

1. Offer transport to a woman day of their procedure.

2. Offer childcare to a women day of their procedure.

3. Collect heating pads, Midol and menstrual pads to give to women post       procedure.

4. Volunteer as an escort at your local clinic.Find your nearest fund and,          well, fund them.   

The powerful letter "Emily Doe" wrote to address Brock Turner went viral around the world. Here she reads the words herself. This riveting video will help you understand what the victims of sexual assault experience.

 

This simple quote from Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun, very clearly defines the hypocrisy of the anti-abortionists.

In a statement she made in 2015 she pointed out she believes “That just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact”, she said,” your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed.”  Continuing she said, “And why would I think that you don’t?  Because you don’t want any tax money to go there.  That’s not pro-life.  That’s pro-birth.”

A case in point was a demonstration by the so-called “pro-life” movement a few years ago.  One after another the demonstrators were approached by pro-choice feminists asking them to sign a pledge to adopt a child from an unwanted pregnancy. Not one person would sign and many did everything they could to avoid even speaking with the person approaching with the pledge.

Another example: Their so-called family planning clinics offer help throughout the pregnancy.  But there is little or no help once the child is born.

These words certainly describe the Right Wing anti-choice extremists in many State Governments and the Congress.  These Republican hypocrites are hell bent on controlling women’s bodies, not on caring for children once they are born.  While the needs of children are ignored, they give handsome tax cuts to corporations and their “fat cat” ceo’s.

They have no real concern for women either. They don’t care if women die.  And die they will if they are denied safe legal abortions.  Preventing legal abortions doesn’t stop abortion.  It only makes desparate women seek whatever means they can to get an abortion.

One of the greatest gifts my Mother gave me was to instill in me the importance of reading.  In doing so she made it possible for me to find my voice.

She did not even have a high school diploma and yet somehow she made reading well and learning of paramount importance to me.  She instinctively knew there was nothing one could not learn if only one would read.

This fact has been borne out in my life in all of my endeavors. For example,  I came to realize my activism in the fight for women’s equality would only be productive if I was as intellectually prepared as I could be.  Reading would make this possible.

The more I read the more determined I was to make my voice heard.  This process continues daily.

womensvoicesmedia.com is MY VOICE.