First Forum Sunday, March 26, 2023

Submitted by Jean Hester.

Women’s Abortion Rights is an issue that will be with us nationally and locally for a long time to come. At some point First U may come to support this issue in a more active manner. Then, it would be well to have documentation that the March 26, 2023 Women’s Reproductive Rights Forum, first discussed as a possibility during a Humanist group meeting in October, then designed and implemented by three First U women who went on to invite a larger group of women, and men, to work with them as volunteers to ensure a successful program .

All are named on the program I submitted with this statement. [SEE BELOW] Those volunteers were eager to participate. They may well serve as a nucleus for continuing action.

I offer this statement on behalf of my Forum co-chairs Rosie Medley and Barbara Randolph, our panel moderator Margaret Huyck, and the the many First U Women, and men, who, when asked, willingly joined us in a beginning effort to educate the community as to the status of the

Threatened reproductive rights rights of women.

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PROGRAM

11:30 a.m. Welcome and Introductions: Jean Hester

Forum Moderator: Margaret Huyck

ABORTION YESTERDAY: Martha Scott

ABORTION TODAY: Qudsiyyah Shariyf

12:00 p.m. Questions from the audience for panel

At the direction of the ushers, please line up at the right of the Sanctuary.

Contributions to the Chicago Abortion Fund are welcome! See the ushers for contribution baskets.

For information, contact info@chicagoabortionfund.org

About the Presenters

Jean Hester: Organizer; long-time civil rights activist and Unitarian-Universalist church member.

Margaret Huyck, Professor Emerita, IIT; Past President, Chicago Hyde Park Village; Past-President Older Women’s League; First Unitarian member

Martha Scott will share first-hand experience as an abortion counselor. She is joined today with Jeanne Galatzer-Levy and Eileen Smith. These women, with others, served as inspiration for the HBO film “The Janes” – an underground network in Chicago during the 1960s and ’70s that helped women obtain illegal abortions.

Qudsiyyah Shariyf \s Deputy Director of the Chicago Abortion Fund. She became an activist while an undergraduate student at University of Chicago.

Special Thanks to our First Unitarian Chicago