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Comments for March for Women's Lives
April 25, 2004
Gary Bailey
Today, the National Association of Social Workers is extremely
proud to be a co-sponsoring partner of this historic event.
Thank
you so much to the March coordinators and partners. It's our pleasure
to be here.
Since the inception of the profession, social workers have
steadily fought for people's rights.
Social workers help people
make decisions based on an understanding of their own strengths.
They
help them navigate and choose among the complex systems that are
in place to support them in times of crisis.
When it comes to family
planning, reproductive health services, and access to health care,
social workers value self-determination.
Social work is based on the principle that each individual
has a right to quality of life.
People have a right to make their
own decisions about how to meet the challenges, overcome the obstacles,
and grasp the opportunities that are so much a part of life. This
is what this March is all about. Making choices about reproductive
health services, or any other health service, is not a government
responsibility.
There should be no restrictions from public agencies
or insurance companies on what services you can choose for your
own personal health.
No one should make those choices but you.
As a son, uncle, nephew, cousin, friend, and social worker,
I know that reproductive freedom is not just a woman's issue. It's
a human issue.
There are many social workers here today, speaking
out in support of people's rights to make choices about who they
are and who they love, where they live, how they live, and what they
do.
It is far too easy to forget history. After fighting for, and finally
enjoying, our hard-won personal freedoms, it is too easy to become
complacent.
In Regarding the Pain of Others , Susan Sontag
wrote,
“Compassion is an unstable emotion, it needs to be
translated into action, or it withers. Otherwise, one starts to get
bored, apathetic, or cynical.”
The right — and the responsibility — to
have choices and make decisions is not only a woman's right. It is
the right of ALL Americans.
Thank you for joining us here today to
fight for this right.
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