By Sam Gault, Communications and Engagement Manager

March 1, 2023

Thanks again to our wonderful presenter (who we are not naming here for privacy reasons), to Maddy Lerner for facilitating, and to all of you who showed up, asked questions, and helped make our first educational event of the year such a huge success! For those of you who were unable to attend abortion 101, our presenter has supplied a brief list of resources pertaining to abortion in the United States:

Podcasts:

• SMA (self-managed abortion) is a storytelling podcast that was created in 2020, before Roe fell. It presents stories about how and why people opt to manage their own abortion.
• Radiolab recently put out a two-part podcast about smuggling mifepristone and misoprostol to Ukraine. While it doesn’t really apply to what’s up in the United States, it provides a fascinating perspective on the state of reproductive freedom internationally.

Resources for people seeking abortions:

• SASS (Self-Managed Abortion, Safe and Supported) is a U.S. project of Women Help Women, a global nonprofit organization that supports the rights of people around the world to have information about and access to safe abortion with pills. Information is power. We all deserve accurate information about our bodies and reproductive health.
• Abortion Finder provides up to date state-by-state laws as well as funding and clinic information.
• The Guttmacher Institute tracks and synthesizes state and national data on reproductive health and rights.

Family Planning info and resources:

• Euki is a secure sexual health app and period tracker with links to lots of great resources. It does not track personal information or sell it to advertisers.
• Bedsider is an excellent place to get up to date information on contraception, sexual health, and abortion.

An example of the experience of providers in restricted states:

• The Guardian recently published a heartbreaking articled titled “‘I cried with her’: the diary of a doctor navigating a total abortion ban.”

This is by no means a comprehensive list of resources! If there is a question or topic that you wish had been addressed here, please email sam@ncjwmn.org for additional resources.

By Sam Gault, Communications and Engagement Manager

February 15, 2023

We’re so proud of our menstrual equity champions! NCJW Minnesota’s Periods Happen initiative has made great strides in recent months, both in terms of product distribution and legislative action.

While our tampon supply has been holding up, since we tend to get fewer requests for them, our supply of menstrual pads was dwindling. At the beginning of this month, we were down to our very last carton of Seventh Generation pads from the company’s 2020 donation. Thanks to the generosity of 80 donors, our “Give to the Max(i Pad)” campaign this past November was a huge success, and we raised enough money to order 100 cases of Kotex pads, for a grand total of 14,400 individual pads! The new order arrived just in the nick of time, as we received three requests for pads from three schools in the past week alone. Now all we had to do was transport 100 cases of pads to our storage unit for distribution…

A mighty team of volunteers (pictured above) stepped up to save the day, making quick work of transporting our order from the medical supply company to the warehouse, where they are ready to be distributed as we head into the final months of the school year. Thank you Abby, Lisa, Marilyn, Rollie, and Pam!

If you’d like to join the listserv of Periods Happen delivery volunteers, please send me an email and I’ll add you straightaway.

On the legislative side, we’re closer than ever to passing House File 44/Senate File 50 to bring menstrual equity to Minnesota schools! You can learn more about this bill, as well as other legislation we’re watching this session, from the regularly updated “Bills We’re Watching” post on this blog. Erica Solomon, our Executive Director, was also recently interviewed about NCJW Minnesota’s work on menstrual equity on Gender Justice’s podcast—give it a listen here.

If you would like to write a post for this blog—whether on an event, a social issue, or anything else NCJW-related—please don’t hesitate to send it my way!

by Erica Solomon, Executive Director 

January 13, 2023

Periods Happen–which started when one school’s request for menstrual hygiene products sparked an NCJW program that has distributed 200,000 pads and tampons to the community–is close to counting a legislative achievement among its impacts.

After faltering at the last moment in 2022, chief authors Representative Sandra Feist (39B) and Senator Steve Cwodzinski (49) introduced the Menstrual Equity Bill in the first week of the 2023 session as HF44/SF50. NCJW has been working alongside Rep. Feist, Sen. Cwodzinski, and a team of community advocates (many of them high school students led by Hopkins High Junior, Elif Ozturk) to bring menstrual equity to Minnesota schools by providing funding for period products for all 4th-12th grade student restrooms. Learn more about the bill, the research behind it, and how it would help Minnesota students thrive, in this Star Tribune Opinion piece from January 11, 2023.

Where we are

This past Wednesday, January 11, the bill had its first committee hearing with House Education Policy. A great slate of student and school nurse testifiers did a fantastic job advocating for the bill’s necessity and impact. Rep. Urdahl (16A) introduced an amendment to prevent the bill from including “boys” gendered restrooms (currently, it states that products must be provided in at least one of these in each school). NCJW opposes this amendment because the inclusion of trans or nonbinary students that have no choice but to use gendered restrooms at school is crucial to fulfill the bill’s goal of creating equity for all students that menstruate. Additionally, exposing even male identifying students that don’t menstruate themselves to these products helps eliminate stigma and normalize periods–an important goal of the legislation. Thankfully, the amendment did not prevail, and the committee approved the referral of the bill in its original form to the House Education Finance committee. This is a big win as it brings us one step closer to a floor vote and eventual signing into law!

What’s next? 

The House Education Finance Committee will hear the bill on Wednesday, January 18 at 10:30 a.m. Later that same day, at 12:30 p.m., the Senate House Policy Committee will hear their version of the bill. Another strong group of testifiers is lined up for the day’s hearings. We welcome you to attend the hearings, which will be held Capitol 120 (House committee) and Senate Office Building Room 1200 (Senate committee). You can also livestream them on the House website and Senate YouTube channel as your schedule allows. We look forward to sharing outcome of the hearings, and hopefully being scheduled in the Senate Education Finance Committee soon afterwards.

How you can help

Contact your representatives in support of the bill! Here’s a template you can use, but it is super barebones and we encourage you to add a personal touch! You can also utilize/share this one-pager/policy brief and these social media graphics. To read the full text of each version of the bill and follow its progress, search HF44 or SF50 on the MN Legislature website. 

If you are connected with any school staff and/or 4th-12th grade students that would be interested in submitting a written statement of support, or possibly testifying at an upcoming hearing, please get in touch with Erica Solomon at Erica@ncjwmn.org.

Let’s make 2023 the year that we #EndPeriodPovertyMN!