Raising reproductive rights awareness

For years, the Bergen and Essex sections of the National Council of Jewish Women have worked closely with the organization’s headquarters in Washington to create a strong reproductive health public awareness campaign.

Last fall, the two sections, acting together, won a grant from the national organization’s Jewish Fund for Abortion Access supporting local sections as they mobilize Jewish communities to protect and expand reproductive health care.  It was one of eight in that funding round, and the only one awarded in New Jersey.

“While NCJW views abortion access as a matter of religious freedom and health equity, there is misinformation about the legality and availability of abortion care services in the state of New Jersey,” Bari-Lynne Schwartz of Little Falls, co-president of NCJW’s Bergen County section and reproductive rights chair, said. Since 2018, she has overseen many reproductive rights initiatives.

“NCJW Bergen and NCJW Essex County, working together, are proud to partner with the New Jersey Family Planning League to increase awareness that all reproductive health care, including abortion care, is legal and accessible in our state,” she continued. “In light of increased restrictions in other states, the grant from NCJW’s Jewish Fund for Abortion Access will support expanding this critical outreach and educate more New Jerseyans about the full range of family planning services available to them. The NCJW/Bergen and NCJW/Essex sections, which applied for funding together, are thrilled to have received a total of $4,000 from the NCJW’s Jewish Fund for Abortion Access to expand the New Jersey Family Planning League’s  statewide public awareness campaign.”

“NCJW’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., as well as a number of sections throughout the country, oversee and support numerous activities related to reproductive justice,” Sarah Cohen, the Essex County section’s director of advocacy, said. “The funds ensure that everyone, everywhere, at every income level, can access the reproductive health care they need.

“The Jewish Fund for Abortion Access is a major initiative of NCJW, the umbrella organization for sections across the country,” she said. Launched in 2022, the fund’s goal is to promote financial support for abortion care and to drive local community action.

The two New Jersey NCJW sections that won funding represent a diverse cross-section of Jewish feminist advocates throughout the country who are united in their  commitment to ensuring reproductive freedom in their communities. “We are eager to mobilize our engaged volunteer base in a campaign to raise public awareness,” Ms. Schwartz said. “This is a program that our members champion.”

Ms. Schwartz, who received her master’s degree in social work from Rutgers, was the Bergen County Department of Human Services’ planning officer for 20 years. “I was involved in advocacy work for years on behalf of vulnerable and at-risk populations and took part in policy and legislative reforms to support women’s rights,” she said. After she retired in 2012, Ms. Schwartz attended programs hosted by NCJW/Essex. One of them described the deceptive tactics used by so-called crisis pregnancy centers,

The American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists defines “crisis pregnancy center” as “a term used to refer to facilities that represent themselves as legitimate reproductive health care clinics providing care for pregnant people, but actually aim to dissuade people from accessing certain types of reproductive health care, including abortion care and even contraceptive options.”

Shocked and angered by the disingenuous messages these centers provide women who are looking for real medical advice, Ms. Schwartz was energized and joined NCJW/Bergen’s efforts to support reproductive rights and reproductive justice.

Phoebe Pollinger of Montclair, who retired from a career in investment banking in 1996, has been a member of the Essex NCJW section since 1997. She has been NCJW’s New Jersey state policy advocate since 2020 and is her section’s chair of the reproductive rights committee. Like Ms. Schwartz, Ms. Pollinger is passionate about addressing all issues relating to women’s health rights and freedom.

“I became very involved in reproductive rights work when I joined the Planned Parenthood Action Fund Board in 2012 and have continued that work with NCJW/Essex,” she said; her goal is ensuring that all women in New Jersey have affordable access to all health care options. She too was at NCJW/Essex’s program about crisis pregnancy centers and she, like Ms. Schwartz, was  angered by the centers’ lies, deception, and misinformation.

“These tactics are not only meant to scare and shame people seeking good medical care, but since CPCs are not medical centers staffed by medical personnel, women seeking services are at significant risk of harm to their bodies,” Ms. Pollinger said.

Ms. Pollinger and Ms. Schwartz said staff members at these unregulated and often non-medical facilities have no legal obligation to provide pregnant women with accurate information, are not subject to HIPAA privacy laws, and are not required by law to maintain client confidentiality. The American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists’ statement raises concerns that “many CPCs are affiliated with national organizations that provide funding, support, and training to advance a broadscale anti-abortion agenda,” Ms. Pollinger said.

“Reproductive justice and abortion access has long been a priority of NCJW,” she added. “But the effort to ensure that we are helping people get access was galvanized after the June 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.” The Dobbs ruling fundamentally shifted reproductive rights in America, making abortion access dependent on state rather than federal legislation.

“Along with our partners in the reproductive justice movement, we saw an increased need to raise awareness,” Ms. Pollinger said. One partner is Thrive NJ, a coalition of more than 80 like-minded organizations making collective decisions to promote reproductive justice and advocacy through policy change. “Thrive brings organizations together to leverage our collective voices and resources toward expanding access to reproductive and sexual health care in New Jersey — especially for communities that have been historically marginalized,” she added.

The Thrive NJ coalition includes reproductive health care providers, legal experts, faith leaders, and human and civil rights advocates from around the state. “In conjunction with the Family Planning League of New Jersey, Bari-Lynne and I serve on Thrive NJ’s abortion access subcommittee,” Ms. Pollinger said. “We come together to see how we can support health care providers of reproductive care, to see how we can address barriers to care, to see if there are laws that impede access to affordable and accessible health care for all individuals in the state, to see that we are protecting and providing security for patients and providers, to see that we’re supporting visitors traveling to New Jersey to access reproductive health care because they can’t get it where they live, and to see what other progressive states are doing to break down barriers to accessible reproductive health care. We want to be sure we haven’t missed anything.”

Ms. Pollinger stressed that this work happens within the  committees of the Thrive NJ coalition partners. Both NCJW/Bergen and NCJW/Essex became members of Thrive NJ when the coalition was formed in 2017.

Ms. Pollinger and Ms. Schwartz are firm supporters of the reproductive justice movement. For the past quarter century, NCJW’s go-to resource for information about the movement has been SisterSong, a national multi-ethnic reproductive justice collective formed in 1994.

“All of us in the reproductive rights space do our work in conjunction with the core values addressed by SisterSong,” said Ms. Pollinger, quoting the views of Audre Lorde, the American writer, professor, philosopher, feminist, poet, civil rights activist, and reproductive justice advocate, who said: “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we don’t live single-issue lives.”

“The cornerstone of reproductive justice is the right to have children, the right not to have children, and the right to parent the children you have in safe and sustainable environments,” Ms. Pollinger said. “That belief is what all of us in this arena work toward.”

Members of both the Bergen and Essex  sections of NCJW who are involved in advocating for public awareness had been meeting well before the grant was approved to fine-tune the initiatives that had begun with the New Jersey Family Planning League. “Our plan was to implement and roll out the campaign to the geographic areas the Bergen and Essex County sections cover and to expand our reach as far and wide as possible,” Ms. Pollinger said.

Ms. Pollinger added that NCJW looks at low-income areas where there may be a higher proportion of non-English speakers. “Often, we identify non-English speakers who don’t know what’s available to them in terms of reproductive health care and abortion access,” she said. Both NCJW sections have identified eight zip codes in each county to prioritize.

“Our goal is to increase public knowledge of health care in general, not just reproductive health care,” Ms. Schwartz said. “There are still people who don’t know that abortion is legal in New Jersey. We look at locations based on demographics. We are targeting areas that are historically underserved.”

“Back in the 1920s, NCJW started reproductive health care clinics which ultimately became Planned Parenthood,” Ms. Pollinger said. “We have worked in this arena for over a century.” NCJW’s services are  nonsectarian and are committed to serving everyone. “The generous $4,000 grant from the NCJW’s Jewish Fund for Abortion Access will help create the model to expand the public awareness campaign much further than Bergen and Essex,” she added.  “Our goal is to reach people throughout the state of New Jersey.

“We will be expanding the NJFPL’s public awareness campaign into social media, municipal health departments, and public libraries,” she continued. “We plan to use the existing NJFPL toolkit to reach more locations and more venues.”

“There are so many ways to participate in NCJW’s volunteer efforts,” Ms. Pollinger said. She averages 40 to 60 hours a week supporting NCJW’s Essex section. Ms. Schwartz averages between 30 and 40 hours a week supporting Bergen’s NCJW. “Each section offers a myriad of options to get involved in advocacy for reproductive rights, whether on the ground or online,” Ms. Pollinger said.

NCJW also advocates for gun violence prevention, action against human trafficking and hate, for voting rights, immigrant rights, and menstrual equity, which ensures that anyone who is menstruating and needs them has access to essential products that are not taxed.  It helps members email their legislators to advocate. Ms. Pollinger and Ms. Schwartz hope to engage as many members as possible to distribute vital information to raise awareness.

“Just as every pregnancy is not the same, we recognize that every person’s views are not the same,” Ms. Pollinger said. “What we at NCJW try to do every day is to lead with our Jewish values, to advocate for reproductive health rights and justice for everyone.”

“Too many people are misinformed and under-informed about abortion rights in New Jersey,” Ms. Schwartz said. “By increasing awareness that abortion is legal and available in New Jersey, I hope everyone can make informed decisions about their reproductive healthcare and their lives.”

Go to www.ncjw-essex.org or www.ncjw-bergen.org for more information or to get involved.