FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 3, 2015
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Today, NARAL Pro-Choice America released a new TV ad campaign in Illinois, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and North Carolina hitting the Republican senators in those key 2016 Senate races for holding up the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act in Congress over language to ban abortion coverage. The ads will run on Fox, MSNBC and CNN in each state for a week.
In addition, NARAL released new polling, conducted this week, which shows the senators’ position on this bill is out-of-step with voters and hurting their re-election chances.
The poll found:
- A majority (60-75%) of voters will be less likely to vote for their Senator if they vote in favor of the provision restricting access to abortions for victims of human trafficking.
- Focusing on restricting abortion within the context of a bill about human trafficking is broadly unpopular.
- A clear majority (70-80%) of voters in these states support legal abortion.
You can see the full polling memo here.
“It’s disturbing to watch these senators put their own ideology ahead of the lives of women who have been through so much already,” said Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “The bill’s clear intention is to help survivors of human trafficking regain control of their lives, yet the first thing these senators want to do is tell them they can’t even have control over their own bodies.”
A Loyola School of Law study found that:
- Women who are trafficked are forced to “service” an average of thirteen men a day.
- Eighty percent of these women report being pregnant at least once
- Twenty percent report being pregnant five times or more
Hogue continued, “In a country where seven in ten people support legal access to abortion, the obsession anti-choice politicians have with banning abortion is outdated and dangerous.”
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