A statement from Miriam Inocencio, CEO, and Barbara Dickinson, Board Chair, of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island:

Planned Parenthood is the nation’s leading women’s health care provider, educator, and advocate. For more than 90 years, we’ve done more than any other organization in the United States to improve women’s health and safety, prevent unintended pregnancies, and advance the right and ability of individuals and families to make informed and responsible choices.

Our Community Affairs Department is the advocacy arm of PPRI. Our purpose is to vigorously protect and promote individual reproductive rights and the freedom of choice for all. Our main goal is to pass public policy initiatives that will keep reproductive healthcare safe, legal and accessible. One of our top policy initiatives is to enact buffer zone legislation to ensure safe access to our center by our patients, staff and volunteers. The enactment of a buffer zone will help prevent violence, intimidation and harassment directed at our patients and staff.

Laws protecting abortion providers and patients from violence and intimidation are critical to preserving a woman’s right to choose. Buffer Zone legislation will create a safety zone surrounding entrances and driveways to reproductive health care facilities. Protesters are not allowed in this area. The zone allows people to enter and leave reproductive health care facilities free from harassment, intimidation, and harm. The buffer zone enables women to exercise their right to personal liberty, privacy and access to medical services while simultaneously balancing the First Amendment rights of individuals to express their views near reproductive health care facilities. This is not an abortion issue; this is about law, order, public health and safety, individual liberties and civil behavior.[1]

We called on PPRI’s State Representative, David Segal, to sponsor and support this legislation for many reasons. Representative Segal has been a proven friend of the pro-choice movement and the clinic sits in his district. The email alert we sent to our members was intended as an opportunity for Rep. Segal, a Planned Parenthood Votes! Rhode Island endorsed candidate, to hear from his constituents on this very important issue before he made a final decision on the legislation. The alert was not meant to disparage Rep. Segal’s performance as a legislator.

Rep. Segal is pro-choice and an advocate of women’s rights.  PPRI depends on his unwavering dedication to protecting women’s health and safety. Please ask him to support this legislation.