LOS ANGELES, June 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Women's Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP) has named scholar, activist and columnist Frances Kissling, former president of Catholics for Choice, as its Person of the Year for 2013; and is bestowing its Political Activism Award on attorney and political activist Sandra Fluke. Both women will be honored during a special awards reception at the organization's annual benefit event on Thursday, June 27 (6:00 – 8:00 pm), at a private home in Beverly Hills, California.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130611/PH29934LOGO )
Tickets for the awards reception, which will be highlighted by an invigorating discussion with Kissling and Fluke on the state of reproductive rights, can be purchased online at www.WRRAP.org/events. Proceeds from the event will allow WRRAP to continue to help disadvantaged women who cannot afford safe, legal reproductive healthcare services.
WRRAP's 2013 Person of the Year Frances Kissling is President of the Center for Health, Ethics and Social Policy. She is a scholar and activist in the fields of religion, healthcare policy and gender issues. A Visiting Scholar at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, Kissling is doing research for a series of essays on current controversies involving abortion. She is a regular contributor to The Nation, Mother Jones Magazine and The Huffington Post and is a weekly columnist covering religion, reproductive rights and politics for Salon.com. Kissling was president of Catholics for Choice from 1982 until her retirement in 2007.
Attorney and political activist Sandra Fluke, recipient of WRRAP's 2013 Political Activism Award, became a women's-rights activist in college and continued her advocacy as a law student at Georgetown. Fluke garnered extraordinary media attention when, in February 2012, during a discussion on whether insurance should have a contraception mandate, Republicans refused to allow her to testify to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the importance of requiring insurance plans to cover birth control. Commenting on her statements at that hearing, radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh made controversial, personal comments about Fluke's sex life. Fluke continues to be a stalwart women's rights activist and frequently speaks on the issue of reproductive rights at conferences and lectures throughout the country.
WRRAP is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to helping all women gain access to safe, legal reproductive healthcare services.