National Organization for Women-New Jersey PAC Candidate Pledge and Statement
- I pledge to support reproductive rights and justice, access to safe and legal abortion, effective birth control and emergency contraception, reproductive health services and education for all women. Further, I vow to oppose attempts to restrict these rights through legislation, regulation or constitutional amendment. I support repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which restricts the constitutional right to abortion for low-income women on Medicaid.
- I will advocate for economic justice issues that can disproportionately affect women. I will support a living wage and pay equity and fight to end job discrimination, including pregnancy discrimination. I will work towards providing universal health care, paid family leave, affordable childcare, and affordable housing for all working families.
- I will seek an end to all violence against women. I will support and craft legislation to combat domestic violence, sexual assault and harassment, violence at abortion clinics, hate crimes across lines of gender, sexuality and race, and institutional violence that victimizes women and children in the judicial system.
- I condemn racism and will fight for racial justice ensuring equal opportunities for women of color in all areas, including employment, education, health care, voting rights, and immigration reform. I condemn xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment in words and actions, and will speak out to ensure a safe environment for all.
- I acknowledge and support LBGTQ+ rights by fighting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in all areas, including marriage equality, employment, education, military policy, housing, public accommodations, health services, and child custody. I will fight to ensure civil rights so all LBGTQ+ individuals can live their lives with dignity and security.
- I will seek an end to human trafficking. I will support and craft legislation to combat human trafficking to protect our children and all human beings from being traded for the purpose of forced labor, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation especially given the location of our state as affording human traffickers a corridor used to trade in human beings.
- I acknowledge the insidiousness of the opioid epidemic and will support and craft legislation that advocates for better access to treatment, housing, follow-up care and employment for substance abusers who have had little support in the past.
- I demand constitutional protection for gender, ensuring that gender will be judged under ‘strict scrutiny’ in the courts of the land. While NJ has ratified the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), I recognize that equality will remain elusive without a guarantee of equity in the US Constitution. I support federal legislation to extend or remove the time limit for ratification, and encourage the efforts of remaining states to ratify the ERA.
As a candidate, I commit to these statements in seeking the endorsement of NOW-NJ PAC and/or NOWPAC