Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/198837
Sarasota News Leader October 25, 2013 Page 31 many of the candidates being so anti-women in their philosophy, particularly regarding reproductive healthcare, the great pushback on contraception coverage for women in insurance plans. We call it the "war on women." There are a lot of things going on that have been really detrimental to women's health. Planned Parenthood nationally is suing the State of Texas for all these gross discriminations, and Florida's very similar to Texas in a lot of ways. Gov. [Rick] Scott always compares himself to Gov. [Rick] Perry. That's a pretty scary comparison. And so we're watching very closely what happens in our legislative session. We're monitoring what's happening in the committees, so we can keep track of Florida, and, hopefully, we're not going to go the way of Texas. News Leader: We talked about increasing popular support. Do you see that locally on the ground? Zdravecky: How many people do we have in our network? 90,000? Just here in southwest and central Florida, which is a heck of a lot of people that we can call upon and [reach] through emails and say, "We need your support." People who have actively signed up. They have signed cards and said, "We want to be involved," and, "We want to be active." It's a great opportunity, and a lot of young people News Leader: This year, it didn't seem like are involved. there was any major legislative action in Young people have been awakened to the fact Florida. that what's happening in their legislatures Zdravecky: During the presidential election, and in [Washington,] D.C. is not really what we had a ballot initiative. [The proposed state they expected to be facing at this point in the amendment would have eliminated consti- year 2013. tutional privacy protections in Florida.] We were able to raise in the state $4.2 million, and we defeated it soundly. And I think that particular victory sent a message to Tallahassee that we had both people power and support and finances to wage a battle like that. We have a very great friend with Sen. Nancy Detert [of Venice]. She's in Republican leadership and she's a strong supporter of women's issues, and I depend on her to monitor things. She's been a great supporter over the years. News Leader: They seem like they're exhausted by these social battles that have dominated the older generation. Zdravecky: It's not that they don't care about them. They expect them to be resolved. The whole issue with marriage equality — the younger generation is much more tolerant. They believe in individual rights and don't want to be telling anybody else what to do, including people's options for reproductive healthcare.