Maine Resident, Women’s Group Leader: “Susan Collins Is No Victim”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, September 12, 2018
CONTACT: Yasmina Dardari | yasmina@unbendablemedia.com | (407) 922-8149
MAINE – Over the last 24 hours, Susan Collins has tried to portray herself as the victim as progressive activists have increased their pressure on her to vote against Brett Kavanaugh.
Karin Roland, a Portland resident and Chief Campaigns Officer for UltraViolet, a leading national women’s group issued the following statement in response:
“Let’s be crystal clear on this, Susan Collins is no victim.
“In the coming weeks she’ll likely cast the deciding vote on whether to put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court or not. A vote that likely will decide the fate of Roe v. Wade and abortion access in this country. With so much at stake, of course women in Maine and across the country have demanded that our voices be heard. In a democracy, we should expect nothing less.
“If she doesn’t want to hear from her constituents, if she believes her constituents like me and thousands of other Maine women who have been speaking out, do not have a right to protest her, if she doesn’t believe citizens have a right to raise money to oppose her then maybe it is time for her to find a new line of work.
“Yes, vulgar calls and threats are unacceptable. But these are a very small percentage of the calls she is receiving and by selectively leaking them to the press she is trying to create a false and misleading narrative. Senator, if you’re going to release calls to the press, release them all. Release the calls from the tens of thousands of Maine residents like me, who have respectfully urged you to oppose this nomination because our lives, our health care and our families depend on it.”
“Susan Collins must now decide if she is going to be the independent, common-sense, pro-choice champion she has claimed to be for years, or just another Trump Republican willing to throw the rights of women under the bus. She can be one or the other. What she is not, and will not be, is a victim no matter how hard she tries to spin it.”
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UltraViolet is an online community of over 1,000,000 women and men who want to take collective action to expose and fight sexism in the public sector, private sector and the media.