Nevada

Advocates Insider News

February 2009  

What and Where is PPAMM?Planned Parenthood Advocates Mar Monte is an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit organization formed as the political advocacy arm of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, which provides services in 40 counties across California and northern Nevada. The Advocates protect women's health and privacy through lobbying and public policy, electing pro-choice candidates at all levels of government and identifying, educating and mobilizing pro-choice voters.

Why PPAMM is Important to Me
"I have really enjoyed my volunteer work with Planned Parenthood over the last year and a half, especially during the election process. All the time and effort dedicated to contacting the people of  Nevada paid off with the election of a pro-choice president. I look forward to many more opportunities to volunteer!"
-Heather, Nevada volunteer for Planned Parenthood Advocates Mar Monte

"I am a part of this group (the PPAMM Board) because I believe in the services that Planned Parenthood provides.
I have worked in health care in Washoe County for over ten years and I am currently a student at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. I have spent a sufficient amount of time working with underserved and marginalized communities to understand the importance of social services including public health education and prevention programs.
Additionally I have had the privilege of studying public and health policy with some wonderful people from the University of Nevada, including Frankie Sue Del Papa (former Attorney General and Advocates 2008 Award recipient for Life Time Achievement).
The cornerstone to initiatives that seek to imporve the health status of our communities is the development of effective policy. I believe it is absolutely essential that we keep candidates in office that understand the fundamental value of public health education and services including reproductive initiatives."
-Benjamin Stump, Planned Parenthood Advocates Mar Monte Board Member. Excerpt from his speech at the 2008 Reno Voices for Change event.

Legislature UpdateLobbyist Elisa Maser, CEO of Nevada Advocates for Planned Parenthood Affiliates, is walking the halls, monitoring legislative activity and bill drafts, and meeting with all the Nevada legislators. If you can't make it to a grassroots lobby day, you can still contact your representative and share your support for Planned Parenthood and our agenda of:

     -Protecting teens with Real Sex Education.
     -Providing Compassionate Care for rape survivors.
     -Addressing environmental issues affecting reproductive health.
     -Expanding access to reproductive health and family planning,
      at our five health centers and beyond.
     -Defeating anti-choice bills creating fetal personhood or
      endangering teens by creating barriers to health care and 
      sexuality education.

Call your legislator today to share with him or her your support of Planned Parenthood and these legislative issues. You can find your legislator's contact information on the Nevada State Legislature's site.

Did You Know?

Nevada spent more than $2.4 million on abstinence-only programs in 2008. Yet, Nevada still has the highest teen pregnancy rate, the 8th highest teen birth rate, and the 4th highest teen abortion rate (www.guttmacher.org). Nevada taxpayers contributed $67 million associated with teen childbearing in 2004 according to The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancies (http://www.teenpregnancy.org/costs/pdf/tables/table1.pdf). 

It's time for Real Sex Education in Nevada.

President-elect Obama, and his newly-formed health care reform team asked Planned Parenthood to participate in nationwide health care discussions over the next several weeks. The survey went out to Advocates Insider subscribers, and Planned Parenthood Mar Monte supporters and staff. The anonymous responses were sent to the President-elect's health care team.

The Nevada Results (75 surveys):

Biggest Problem with the Health Care System: 31.9% of respondents said 'Cost of Health Care Services' with the 'Cost of Health Insurance' close behind with 29% of responses.

Rank of Reproductive Health Services (scale of 1-10, 10 being most important): 64% of respondents ranked reproductive health services between 8 and 10.

Should Preventive Services be included in General Health Care?: 97.2% of you said 'Yes'.

Best Way for Policy Makers to Address Health System Problems: 41% of respondents said that surveys like this one were the most helpful, and 26% chose 'White House Health Care Summit' as the best option.

Why is Women's Health Care Important to You?

"We must take care of all Americans, not just the most fortunate."
"As a young woman affected by faith-based insurance and high priced birth control on college campuses added to the high rates of STDs in the youth population, I am worried that others do not have the education that I do to make responsible, healthy choices that benefit my health."
"My body, my sexuality, and my choice regarding reproduction are deeply personal. It is of the utmost importance to me that I be able to access necessary medical counsel and care, and that I be allowed to make decisions regarding my health and my body as I see fit."
"Womans [sic] health care is important to me because without it I wouldn't have my mom here today. When she was 26 she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The only reason it was caught in time and saved her life was due to her yearly screenings. My mother was fortunate enough to have insurance so she could go get her yearly exams but what about women who are not?"
"I am an African American college student and woman's [sic] health care is extremely important to me. In my experience I have had difficulty getting insurance, accessing birth control, and receiving information about the medical issues that affect my demographic."

What role do you see Planned Parenthood playing in providing health care?

"I see Planned Parenthood on the front. It can be the driving force behind comprehensive sex education. It has the neccesary tools to create and implement thorough programs that focus on different demographic groups."
"Planned Parenthood helped me around 28 years ago. I think young women need to know as much as possible to protect themselves. Some girls I knew growing up could not speak to their parents, but could get information from other places. Planned Parenthood has to be there for them."
"It should be able to provide complete information to women without losing funding..."
"I see Planned Parenthood providing health care to those of higher need, individuals who have no one to educate, support or care for them, the low income individuals who have been abandoned."
"I see PP as leading the way for women's health care rights and reform."

Didn't get a chance to fill out the Women's Health Matters Survey? It's not too late! Planned Parenthood is still collecting responses to send to the Obama-Biden Health Care team. Send in your thoughts today.

December 2008

2008 Election Overview

Planned Parenthood Advocates Mar Monte, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte's political and electoral advocacy sister organization, works to elect pro-choice candidates at every level of government.

For the November election, Advocates questionnaires were sent to all candidates running for office our area, from the local level (School Board, City Council and County Commissioners) to the state and national levels (State Assembly and Senate, Congress, and President).The candidates' responses were put into online voter guides so PP supporters could learn where the candidates in their areas stood on women's health, access to services, and comprehensive sexuality education. In Nevada we doubled our voter guide return rate to nearly 30%. We also had significant interest from candidates and elected officials to assure they were in good standing with Planned Parenthood, and thus our voters!

We still are a long way from encouraging all candidates to know being pro-choice won't hurt them. In August our sister organization Nevada Advocates for Planned Parenthood Affiliates (NAPPA) conducted a voter turn out effort in two GOP primaries contested between mostly pro-choice incumbents battling extremely anti-choice challengers. In one assembly district we turned out 30% of our voters compared to the 20% average in the district who turned out. The overall effort was split--we kept one mixed seat and lost to an anti-choice candidate.

In Nevada, in cooperation with the statewide lobbying arm NAPPA, Advocates volunteers canvassed and phone banked tirelessly and staff organized media, rallies, letters to the editors and fundraising to reach voters in the swing state of Nevada and to know about presidential candidate John McCain's out of touch record on women's health and reproductive rights.

In addition, PPAMM held several phone banks in California to connect to voters in Nevada. Across the state throughout the summer 23 key volunteers helped assure Planned Parenthood dialed 5500 likely voters and talked to nearly 1100 people about reproductive rights as an election issue. Then in October our 64 volunteers (including 26 from California!)  made more than 40,000 persuasion and Get Out the Vote phone calls, connecting to 14,000 voters and securing nearly 7,000 pro-choice votes. We attended the Nevada Day parade in full force handing out silver mardi gras beads and "Protect Women's Health" stickers.

Overall, 41 NAPPA and PPAMM endorsed candidates were elected Nevada including Pro-Choice President Elect, Barack Obama! In Nevada the efforts changed the state legislature to a pro-choice or leans pro-choice majority from being evenly divided in thirds as pro-choice, mixed or anti. This will help with our legislative priorities in the coming session starting February 2, 2009.

Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard to ensure that women's health is a priority at every level of governance. A list of all winning pro-choice candidates can be found at: http://www.prochoicepower.org/votingprochoice-nevada.html

Legislative Priorities

The looming budget crisis will consume the legislators and we hope they have the vision to create sustainable funding resources to protect education, health care and infrastructure for the state. Knowing the challenges facing the legislators surrounding the budget, PP is promoting only no-cost legislation to assure women have access to safe, medical services protecting their health and fertility; increased standards in sex education to reduce Nevada's ranking with the highest teen pregnancy rate, preventing burdensome legislation which would limit practitioner's ability to provide service to low-income patients and, monitoring and defeat of anti-choice legislative attempts.

Planned Parenthood will be conducting ongoing trainings to assure our volunteers lobby their representatives on a consistent basis, communicate their concerns about issues to local media outlets and create visibility opportunities to demonstrate PP's support throughout the state.