Upper Bucks Rally for Our Rights

On the second anniversary of the Supreme Court Dobbs decision, reversing Roe vs Wade and the constitutional right to abortion, I was honored to be an invited speaker at the Upper Bucks Rally for Our Rights organized by the PennRidge Democrats. Here, I share with you the heartfelt words I spoke about my view of this somber occasion.

I appreciate the opportunity to be with you today. I thank the PennRidge Democrats for organizing this event, and for all you do for our community year round.

My name is Vera Cole and I am running for the PA State House in District 145. That is the district just north of here, hugging the Bucks County border over to the river. I am an engineer. My last professional position was teaching Energy and Sustainability Policy at Penn State. Several years ago I needed to leave early to care for a family member. It is time to go back to work and I thought I am so aggravated with politics, let me see if I can be a drop of the change I want to see.

I want us to bring it down a notch. To start our days by being grateful. To prioritize important things we can agree on rather than small things we can fight about. One of the things we can agree upon, for sure, is our right to privacy, especially when it comes to our right to access reproductive healthcare.

As I stand here, I am so aware of the irony that we have to take to public stages with microphones and crowds and media, to demand privacy. Few things are more innately private than a person's reproductive healthcare. Yet, nearly everyday I find myself on someone's porch talking about other people's reproductive healthcare, like it's our business. I don't like having these conversations. I often sense that the other person doesn't like having them either. But we do what we must do. Those who would seek to control the personal lives of others have made it so.

We must take to these stages and to front doors and to political offices and to the streets, to make it clear that reproductive healthcare decisions are personal and private, no place for politics. The country is with us: We want access to reproductive healthcare and the right to manage our own care in private. This argument is not about the decisions, but about who makes the decisions. Everyone here today knows, what is self evident, we--not others--make decisions about our healthcare.

My dream is for a day when rallies like this are no longer necessary. When we do not have to march and storm over reproductive healthcare, but instead, return these deeply personal conversations to the quiet privy of our own homes and doctors offices. I invite you to join me in a moment of quiet dignity and silence, in collective solidarity, as testimony to the very privacy we seek.

May our silence be heard, loud and clear.

I am working hard to get to Harrisburg, with Eleanor Breslin, to help establish sure and affordable access for all to reproductive healthcare, with dignity and privacy. Thank you for your support.