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The Index represents the first effort in RI to ascertain where candidates for any office stand on rights to bodily autonomy, including abortion and support or opposition to LGBTQ+ rights.
Providence, RI – The Womxn Project announced on Oct. 16 the full report launch for the General Election of the Bodily Freedom Forever Index. This index is derived from publicly available sources and directly from candidates.
“The Womxn Project does not expect every candidate will respond to the survey in the interests of transparency since there has not been a direct action for this kind of accountability. But voters have the right to know where candidates for any elected office stand on these most fundamental of human rights," said The Womxn Project co-founder and executive director Jocelyn Foye in an Oct. 16 press release.
The Womxn Project defines "bodily freedom" as "the ideal that people should have sole decision-making power over their own body as long as those decisions don’t infringe on another’s bodily freedom."
The Bodily Freedom Forever Index rates candidates as supporting or opposing bodily freedom based on their support or opposition to reproductive rights including abortion and support or opposition to LGBTQ+ rights.
The Index is sorted by town and then the candidates for every race in that town are listed along with their position on various issues as "For / Against or N/A," with the latter designation for candidates who have yet to respond to the survey.
“The Womxn Project encourages constituents to contact candidates in their towns to encourage, cajole and harangue them into responding to the survey or otherwise declaring their position on bodily freedom. The BFFI will become a feature of every election in RI and you can help us build it by contacting candidates,” stated Foye in the press release.
The Womxn Project encourages any interested voter to contact their candidates and ask them to fill out the BFFI Survey. They have compiled a list of publicly available contact information for every candidate on their website and encourage candidates themselves to request access to the BFFI survey if they did not receive or cannot find the email at an link on our website.
The Womxn Project will continue to compile the results and other research findings right up until the last day to vote on November 5th.
"Local elected officials may not directly act upon issues of bodily freedom, but candidates’ stands on bodily freedom informs aspects of many other policies," said Foye.