Netroots Nation 2015
100 N 3rd Street
Phoenix, AZ 85004

July 18, 2015

Sen. Elizabeth Warren
2400 JFK Federal Building
15 New Sudbury Street
Boston, MA 02230

Dear Senator Warren,

We the undersigned attendees of Netroots Nation 2015 are writing to express our disappointment and frustration with your failure to include a single mention of reproductive health and rights in your keynote speech.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, states enacted 51 new abortion restrictions in the first half of this year, which brings the total number of restrictions to 282 since 2010. It is a mistake to exclude this crisis from the concerns of the broader progressive movement, especially when reproductive freedom is a basic economic issue for half of the population.

When you are addressing Netroots, you are in a room full of activists from states like Missouri, where women have to wait 72 hours to access abortion. You are being live-streamed from states like Mississippi, where women are fighting tooth and nail to keep their lone clinic open. Women all over the country are being disrespected, called immoral, and talked down to like they are children for having the audacity to say they stand with the majority of Americans who support the right to abortion.

When you stand up in front of progressives and detail all of the ways that progressive values are mainstream American values and fail to include abortion, you are reinforcing the white male dominance that still holds power in conferences like these.

We activists and advocates are not here to get out your votes, throw the largest parties at Netroots, and then keep applauding as you lay out a broader agenda without us.

We look forward to hearing you speak authentically on how progressive values include the right to abortion when you address Netroots Nation in St. Louis in 2016.

Sincerely,

Mary Alice Carter
Christina Crisostomo
Emily Crockett
Heather Cronk
Helene de Boissiere
Rebecca Farmer
Johanna Fernandez
Jaclyn Friedman
Gabriel Garcia-Vera
Melissa Green
Paris Hatcher
Katie Hegarty
Norma Jimenez
H Kapp-Klote
Katie Klabusich
Regina Mahone
Erin Matson
Anne Mattson
Pamela Merritt
Tara Murtha
Sean Nicholson
Benjamin O’Keefe
Hemly Ordonez
Rachel Perrone
Dana Rasso
Kelley Robinson
Roger Rosen
Robert Jay Ross
Hannah Elyse Simpson
Kaori Sueyoshi
Robyn Swirling
Jos Truitt

[Originally posted on Tumblr.]