H.R. 448/S. 217, the Women's Health Protection Act, would roll back a lot of the assaults on abortion rights we've seen at the state level over the last few years -- assaults all undertaken in the name of "protecting women," naturally. But restricting the number of health care professionals who can perform abortion-related procedures and tests, requiring women to declare their reasons for their abortion or make unnecessary medical visits, and requiring abortion clinics to measure up to standards required at no other health care facility don't actually protect women -- they just make it harder for women to get abortions, which is still their Constitutional right (and quite specifically not a state's right to restrict), per the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. Hence Sign Here Now helps you tell your Congressfolk to support the Women's Health Protection Act. If your Congressfolk write back opposing your view and unctuously proclaiming their support for protecting women's health, you are free to ask why abortion-related services should be subject to more such "protection" than other health services.
Meanwhile, the Philadelphia metropolitan area suffered another "code orange" day in recent weeks, meaning the air quality was bad enough that "sensitive groups" of people, including children and seniors, should have limited their outdoor activity, and that we all should have limited our contribution to air pollution. You may know what I'm going to say next: that air pollution limits our freedom, and thus should not be as loosely-regulated as right-wing corporatist whiners would like. I mean, if you can't go outside for fear you might get sick, you're not exactly free, are you? No, not even if some coal CEO can gild the plumbing on his 19th vacation home, which is the only "freedom" we get out of more pollution. Now, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (or DEP) has tightened air pollution standards for coal plants lately, but has also exempted the Brunner Island coal plants from these standards, even though polluted air from Brunner Island still reaches the Philly area. So the Sierra Club helps you tell the EPA to step in and force the Brunner Island plant to meet federal standards for smog pollution.
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