URGE Welcomes California Chapters
(Washington, DC) — JustCARE: Campus Action for Reproductive Equity, a campaign of students and allies to bring the abortion pill to student health centers, has joined URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity. In 2017, justCARE launched and began building a network of student leaders across California. Two years later, the efforts of the justCARE campaign and statewide partners culminated in the passage of California’s Senate Bill 24 (SB 24). Signed into law in October 2019, this bold piece of abortion legislation ensures that all public universities in California provide the abortion pill in student health centers.
All justCARE staff and chapters are now part of URGE California (URGE CA). In California, URGE will organize and mobilize young people, advocate for progressive policies, and work to shift culture. In continuing the justCARE campaign’s work, URGE will extend its mission to bring the abortion pill to student health centers in more campuses and states across the country.
“We are honored to continue justCARE’s legacy and expand our shared goal of organizing led by radical young people in service of reproductive, racial, and economic justice,” said Kimberly Inez McGuire, Executive Director of URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity. “JustCARE has done incredible work in improving access to the abortion pill for California’s students and we are thrilled to have such a remarkably talented team join us in mobilizing young people of color, women, LGBTQIA+ folks, and other marginalized communities throughout the South, Midwest, and California.”
Given the tremendous success of the justCARE campaign, Dey Nava, California State Program Director for URGE and former Campaign Manager for justCARE, said that, as the team sought to channel their momentum into larger projects, URGE was a natural fit.
“With SB 24, we accomplished something critically important to the reproductive health of every student in California,” Nava said. “Now, URGE has given us the opportunity to expand the scope of our work to identify ongoing threats to our bodily, social, economic, and civic freedoms and apply a reproductive justice lens to address them.”
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