LAFAYETTE — Last week, a crowd outside the Indiana Statehouse chanted that they were the "pro-life generation." The same day, the Younger Women's Task Force of Greater Lafayette was inside holding a press conference attempting to broaden the conversation beyond the lines of pro-choice or anti-choice.
The Task Force worked with Planned Parenthood, All-Options Pregnancy Resource Center and other Indiana reproductive freedom organizations to show support for Senator Jean Breaux's bill.
Senate Bill 589 does not claim to be an abortion bill, although it does include abortion as part of its wider reproductive health discussion. The bill is currently sitting in the Committee on Judiciary.
The bill advocates that Indiana residents have the right to choose or refuse contraception or sterilization, parent the individual's child and choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term, give birth, place the child for adoption or have an abortion.
The idea was to lay a base level of rights for Hoosiers who can get pregnant, Vanessa Pacheco, YWTF's Director of Policy, said.
“We want to be able to drive some really strong conversation about reproductive health care in this state," she said. "Especially because in the past couple of years there’s been such a strong push to control ideology and decision-making processes for Hoosiers as they are making such serious decisions for themselves."
This legislation aligns with the task force's mission of equity among all women because family planning can be influenced by levels of poverty or racial injustice, Pacheco said.