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Press Release
NARAL Pro-Choice America Endorses Jill Schupp for Congress
Candidate for Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District Earns Endorsement from Nation’s Leading Pro-Choice Advocacy Group
For Immediate Release: February 28, 2020
Contact: [email protected]
NARAL Pro-Choice America today announced its endorsement of Missouri State Senator Jill Schupp in her campaign to represent Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District. Schupp was elected to represent Missouri’s 24th Senate District in 2014 after serving three terms in the Missouri House of Representatives and is now seeking to flip the seat currently held by anti-choice Republican Representative Ann Wagner.
“State Senator Schupp has a long record of fighting to safeguard Missourians’ reproductive freedom, and NARAL is proud to endorse her,” said Ilyse Hogue, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “While Congresswoman Wagner has been busy attacking our reproductive freedom, Senator Schupp has been an invaluable voice for women and families in the state legislature. Senator Schupp fought back as anti-choice lawmakers in Missouri have relentlessly pursued an extreme and unpopular agenda to criminalize abortion and punish women. Missourians deserve a leader in Congress who will fight to defend our most fundamental freedoms — not someone who calls on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. That leader is Senator Jill Schupp.”
“Senator Jill Schupp has been a steadfast champion for reproductive freedom since she was first elected to public office, and NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri is grateful for her leadership during this pivotal moment in Missouri and our nation,” said Mallory Schwarz, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri. “As anti-choice lawmakers continue their assault on the full scope of reproductive health care, we need outspoken pro-choice leaders like Senator Schupp who will fight for them in practice, not just on paper. Missourians and their families deserve a reproductive freedom champion in Congress.”
“I’m honored to have the support of NARAL in my campaign for Congress,” said State Senator Jill Schupp. “At a time when politicians in Missouri are making it harder to get access to care, we need a representative who will protect reproductive health care rights and trust women to make the best decisions for themselves and their families. That’s what I’ve done in the state legislature and what I will continue to do in Congress for the people of Missouri’s 2nd district.”
Missouri has some of the most severe restrictions on reproductive freedom in the United States. In 2019 the state legislature passed an extreme ban on abortion that threatens doctors with prison time. The state also drew national criticism after reports that the Missouri Department of Health used medical records from the state’s lone remaining abortion clinic to create a spreadsheet tracking patients’ menstrual periods.
In 2018, Senator Schupp introduced a number of bills to protect and advance reproductive freedom in Missouri, including bills that would repeal the mandatory 72-hour waiting period before having an abortion and require all organizations providing pregnancy-related services to provide medically-accurate, unbiased information in order to receive state funding. She also voted against a 2009 bill that allowed pharmacists to refuse to provide emergency contraception.
Senator Schupp is running to unseat anti-choice Congresswoman Wagner, who has consistently earned a 0% score from NARAL in the Congressional Record on Choice. In addition to voting to ban abortion and criminalize abortion providers, Wagner has voted to defund Planned Parenthood, dismantle the Affordable Care Act, and to allow employers and health care providers to discriminate against women. In January, Wagner joined over 200 other anti-choice members of Congress in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.
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NARAL Pro-Choice America and its network of state affiliates and chapters are dedicated to protecting and expanding reproductive freedom for all. For more than 50 years, NARAL has worked to guarantee that every woman has the right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive choices, including preventing unintended pregnancy, bearing healthy children, and choosing legal abortion. Since 1969, NARAL has made history, grown to over 2.5 million members, and met the moments that have defined this fight with action, power and freedom.In recognition of its work defending our constitutional right to choose, Fortune Magazine described NARAL as “one of the top 10 advocacy groups in America.”