Statement on Supreme Court Overturning Roe v Wade

The mission of the Women’s Foundation of Mississippi is economic security for women. We operate from a place of opportunity for women.

These principles guide our work:

• We are advocates, catalysts for transformation in the lives of women and girls, monitoring public discourse, educating, sharing information, and supporting policies to achieve meaningful change. We strive for social justice, promoting equal access to opportunity and to equity in all aspects of life. We believe in inclusiveness, embracing diversity reflective of Mississippi’s population, welcoming and valuing different perspectives and opinions. We believe in accountability, through transparency and informed, responsive use of our resources in achieving our mission. We believe in sustainability for The Women’s Foundation, through fiscal responsibility and organizational strength, stewarding resources to meet the unique needs of women and girls.
  
• We trust that a woman will make informed, educated decisions about her health and her family’s health. We support an individual’s right to privacy and confidentiality between herself and her health care providers. We support an individual’s right to receive medically accurate information from medical professionals and in public schools; we align ourselves with mainstream medical groups such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Academy of Pediatrics (APA), the American Nurses Association (ANA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 
  
• We oppose intrusive, excessive, and unnecessary government interference in a woman’s life and personal decisions. 
  
• We believe all Mississippians have the right to obtain quality, affordable public education, particularly post-secondary education, that can lead to good jobs and economic self-sufficiency. We recognize there are significant obstacles to achieving this goal. We value addressing the systemic, root causes of income inequality. 
  
• We support equality and equity for all Mississippians, to enable individuals to make free and informed choices in all spheres of life, free from discrimination. We believe all women have the right to self-determination—to decide if and when to have children.

Tracy DeVries, Executive Director of the Women’s Foundation of Mississippi shared: “While this ruling doesn’t change the work that we have been doing, a decision that overturns Roe v. Wade isn’t consistent with supporting economic security for women in Mississippi, or with many of our Guiding Principles—including trusting women, supporting a right to confidentiality in healthcare, and limiting unnecessary government mandates. Politicized healthcare prohibits women from having autonomy and making decisions in consultation with their healthcare professionals. We know that in a post-Roe world, the need for funding and programming in the areas we already work in is likely to increase. We will continue our work supporting an individual’s right to unbiased and timely medical information and quality, affordable health care, including family planning and STD/STI testing and treatment and access to all forms of contraception.”