Make Your Voice Count – VOTE
As we head into the most contentious election of my lifetime, it seems as though there is universal agreement on one issue – it is time to end the political season and get on with it! As we weigh the options of absentee voting, advance voting or going to the polls on election day, it can be easy to skip the task all together.
Despite the uncertainty of the moment, it is important to remember that 2020 is the centennial of the 19th amendment granting women the right to vote. This is a milestone that should be commemorated and celebrated. It took 100 years of struggle to gain that right, as both internal and external strife marked the suffrage movement. Opposition to the effort often included the argument that women would simply vote as their husbands did, making women’s suffrage unnecessary and redundant. As pundits in 2020 point to women voters as the pivotal arbiter in this election, it refutes those early arguments and reinforces the independence of women and the issues most important to them.
While you have no doubt been inundated with public service announcements touting the importance of voting, let me reinforce this tangible matter …
How your vote will have a real-life impact on our families:
- COVID relief legislation is a governmental endeavor that can determine aid for the unemployed and whether a family can be evicted from their home during this time.
- An attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will be heard by the Supreme Court in November. The law has provided health insurance coverage to 20 million Americans and protected coverage for millions more with pre-existing conditions. Before the ACA, pregnancy counted as a pre-existing condition, meaning a woman could not get coverage in the individual market if she was uninsured and already pregnant. The ACA allows states to expand Medicaid eligibility to help those who need it most. Missourians have acted on that expanded benefit and we hope that Kansas will join soon. Recognition of the necessity of addressing maternal mortality is part of a legislative effort to shine a light on this problem that disproportionately affects Black mothers.
These are just a few of the policies that impact the families we serve. Please join me in taking a 1920 approach to voting this year, celebrating the right and assuming the responsibility.
Tracy Russell,
Executive Director, Nurture KC
