Tea for Me AND Thee!

Thank you Women’s Democratic Club of Franklin County for inviting me to speak at your meeting.

We are gathered today because women continue to fight for equality.

At a time when women are more than half the population, we are still wildly underrepresented in government.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, 128 women occupy 29% of the seats.

In the U.S. Senate, 26 women occupy 26% of the seats.

In the Pennsylvania State Assembly, women hold 32% of the seats, including Madame Speaker, Joanna McClinton.

In the Pennsylvania State Senate, women hold 32.4% of the seats.

Of course, we’ve never had a woman President, nor in the state of Pennsylvania a woman governor.

In Pennsylvania, women earn 81 cents to every dollar, in our 13th Congressional District about 70 cents to every dollar made by a man, and In Franklin County, the median income for all workers aged 15 years and older, regardless of work hours, was $49,795 for males and $31,669 for females. However, when specifically considering full-time, year-round workers within the same age group, the median income was $64,401 for males and $50,604 for females.

There is much work to be done and I am proud to be a part of that fight.

If I could make Reproductive Freedom my number one priority, I would, but if we don’t have Democracy, then we don’t have Reproductive Freedom either. 

And so my slogan is Choose Democracy, but the pink capital is my logo because I will never forsake our causes.

We deserve not only equal representation, but equal voting rights and agency over our own bodies.

It is never anyone’s business, especially that of a legislator, to come between a woman and the health decisions she makes with her trusted medical professionals, just like it is never the business of anyone else to come between a man and the health decisions he makes with trusted medical professionals.

And let’s be very clear – the Save America Act that our own U.S. Representative, wealthy white male John Joyce voted for, is not a sincere attempt to prevent the minimal amount of voter fraud that occurs, but a real stab at suppressing the votes of those whose names don’t match those on their birth certificates – primarily married women.

In the wealthy white men’s world, women can’t possibly have it all, they have decided to relegate women to islands of domesticity instead. 

But women know differently.

We know because we are equally human, equally reasoning, equally emotionally intelligent, equally able to manage working adults, equally able to write persuasive letters to the editor, books, speeches, social media posts, equally able to drive heavy equipment, create a pivot table on a spreadsheet, cover a breaking news story, sell a piece of property, contract a lucrative business deal, start a business, paint a portrait, reveal the image of DNA, and every other human endeavor that humans undertake. And how could we not be when the overwhelming majority of us are built as bearers of the human race to begin with?

I would assert that we are superior in the knowledge of our own bodies.

But that is not a position I covet –

I want everyone to know about all of our bodies, through evidenced-based science that is also LGBTQ+-inclusive and taught by qualified instructors. 

I say these things because in our 13th Congressional District, crisis pregnancy centers, which are not regulated healthcare facilities, often worm their way into schools, teaching their purity-based philosophy of abstinence and victim-blaming, rooted in misogyny.

It’s one of the reasons I’m fighting for National Standards of Sexuality Education. 

And so I pledge to you, as our elected representative to 

• Enshrine into federal law Reproductive Freedom including, but not limited to: abortion, gender-affirming care, birth control, and IVF.
• Ensure publication of the ratified 28th (Equal Rights) Amendment to the US Constitution that reads, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”  
• Enshrine into federal law national sex education standards.
• Require clear labeling of crisis pregnancy centers (CPC’s) that are not regulated healthcare facilities.

I will do more than these things when voted into office, but I will always have us – our equality, our agency, in mind. 

And I invite you to join me in this fight for equality by spreading the messages of my campaign – through my literature, bracelets, and bumper stickers that are on the table. Let’s help voters know my name and what I stand for because we don’t vote for the issues we care most about on the ballots, we vote for people. 

So please vote for me in the primary and remember, when you choose Beth Farnham, you not only choose Reproductive Freedom, you Choose Democracy.