Healthcare reform and a woman's right to choose affect us all. Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak's attempts to hold healthcare reform hostage to his anti-choice agenda is a particularly horrible way to be an obstructionist. It is imperative that progressives and moderates all over the country show Bart and other obstructionist Dems that they had better get with the program of helping Americans or their seats won't be secure.

Connie Saltonstall is running a primary challenge against Bart Stupak (MI-1), co-sponsor of the anti-choice Pitts-Stupak amendment that would take away the right to choose from many women in America. Stupak is also part of the religious extremist cult surrounding the C-street group and has also supported the failed "abstinence only" sex-education programs that increase teen pregnancy rates. This is our chance to show Democrats who side too much with Republicans are vulnerable.

The progressive grassroots (including Daily Kos and my own small efforts) have already raised more than $60,000 for Connie Saltonstall in about a week. It isn't enough yet, but it is a great start. I predicted that once she started getting some real money for her challenge, she would start getting some good endorsements. Well, the first one came in already. The National Organization of Women has now endorsed Connie Saltonstall:

The National Organization for Women Political Action Committee is proud to announce our endorsement of Connie Saltonstall for Congress, representing Michigan's 1st District. Saltonstall is taking on reproductive rights foe and health care reform obstructer Rep. Bart Stupak in the state's Democratic primary this August.

What a relief that a courageous feminist candidate stepped up to the plate to challenge the co-author of the anti-choice Stupak-Pitts Amendment. Thanks to Connie Saltonstall, Stupak's bullying attempts to use health care reform as an opportunity to restrict women's access to abortion will be contested at the polls. Saltonstall stated: "I believe that [Stupak] has a right to his personal, religious views, but to deprive his constituents of needed health care reform because of those views is reprehensible."

Saltonstall is a strong supporter of the full range of feminist issues, including reproductive justice, affirmative action, pay equity, constitutional equality and equal marriage rights. More specifically, she is in favor of repealing the Hyde Amendment, fully funding the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, rescinding the Defense Of Marriage Act, expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act to add paid leave, and undoing the Bush-era damage done to Title IX.

Saltonstall ran for state representative in 2008 and served as a Charlevoix County commissioner in 2006. Her background includes both education and business. She taught fourth grade in the Charlevoix Schools and in 1978 was elected to the Charlevoix Board of Education, then appointed to the Michigan Association of School Boards Taxation Committee and recently completed a three-year term on the Charlevoix County Commission on Aging.

Saltonstall may be entering the race with less than six months for campaigning, but she has the force of many outraged women and men behind her. The recent health care reform negotiations have demonstrated just how vulnerable reproductive rights are when we don't have true feminist champions in Congress. NOW/PAC is pleased that a stellar candidate like Saltonstall has emerged, and we look forward to sending her to Capitol Hill to fight for the rights of women and girls

I suspect NARAL, Democracy for America and Planned Parenthood will soon follow with their endorsements for Saltonstall, making this a real race.

You can contribute to Connie Saltonstall's campaign through Healthcare4America.

More on Saltonstall's opponent, Bart "Keeping Women Down" Stupak, from the Rachel Maddow:

You can contribute to Connie Saltonstall's campaign through Healthcare4America.