Advocates for Women asks the congregation to join them in celebrating and supporting Cedar River Clinics as the December Sunday cause of the month. Cedar River Clinics, run by the Feminist Women’s Health Center (FWHC), has provided compassionate reproductive health care, birth control, and abortions for over 40 years. FWHC was founded in Yakima in 1979 by two young women who wanted patient-centered health care in their community.

As we all learned a few weeks ago, Washington state is one of 12 states that have policies to protect reproductive healthcare, including abortion. However, even with those protections in place, finding a provider is still a challenge.  Almost 40% of all hospital and clinics in Washington state are owned by Catholic organizations who will not offer abortion as a part of healthcare. Couple that with the fact that abortions now illegal in more than 10 states, many individuals will travel to sanctuary states like Washington where the right to abortion is protected.

Cedar River Clinics is an independently run clinic. It is a social justice organization that combines direct services (abortion, birth control, reproductive healthcare), with advocacy and activism (to preserve and ensure access) and community education (to demystify health information and empower health decisions.)  They are seeing people from across the country including from Texas, Florida and South Carolina.  In 2021 Cedar River Clinics served 2,849 clients, representing a 26% increase in clients and clinic visits from 2020. It is likely these numbers will continue to increase.

As always, if you have an organization that you wish to nominate for Sunday cause of the month, we invite you to fill out the online Sunday Cause nomination form.