WHAM! (Women's Health Action and Mobilization).

Women’s Health Action and Mobilization, or WHAM!, was founded in 1989 in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services of Missouri, which granted states more power to restrict women’s access to abortion. It was first a direct action committee of the Reproductive Rights Coalition until that larger group dissolved, and WHAM! became an independent organization. WHAM emerged, then, at a moment when abortion had exploded as one of the most prominent, controversial, and polarizing issues in American life, and many women felt that the Webster decision was emblematic of a larger, serious threat to the protections of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Operation Rescue was shutting down women’s clinics, budget cuts in New York City threatened to close community family planning clinics, and Supreme Court decisions, including the 1991 “Gag” rule, were generating what WHAM felt to be a crisis in women’s health. While several national organizations -- like the National Organization for Women, the National Abortion Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood -- were doing abortions rights work on the legislative and legal fronts, WHAM felt that a stronger response was needed in light of increasingly organized and high-profile anti-abortion activism of the religious right. Drawing on the influence of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), WHAM’s focus was on direct action that specifically targeted officials and institutions who controlled public policy and programs, and it relied on the use of savvy graphics and media-centered actions, civil disobedience, and phone zaps. WHAM became known for its high-visibility, aggressive actions aimed at leaders and institutions that controlled policy around women’s health issues, including the Centers for Disease Control, the Catholic Church, the U.S. Supreme Court, and elected officials.

While one of WHAM’s primary goals was absolute access to abortion on demand, they hoped from the beginning to construe reproductive rights broadly, to include not only the prevention of conception and unwanted pregnancy, but also access to health care generally and the right to feed, clothe, and educate their families regardless of race, class, or sexual orientation. This broad set of concerns was reflected by one of WHAM’s early and most notorious actions, in conjunction with ACT UP: the Stop the Church demonstration at St. Patrick’s Cathderal in December, 1989, to protest John Cardinal O’Connor’s positions on abortion, AIDS, and homosexuality. Over 5,000 people demonstrated outside while protestors disrupted the homily inside the church. This joint demonstration, as activist and journalist Esther Kaplan wrote, “testified to the creative strength of a coalition built around sexual and reproductive freedom.” This action was emblematic of WHAM’s ongoing attacks on the Catholic Church, and as the song and chant sheets in the collection testify, they coined a number of slogans aimed at the church, including, “Pray, you’ll need it/ Your cause will be defeated,” and “Four, Six, Eight, Ten/Why are all your leaders men?”

...