In a state as anti-choice as Texas, leading reproductive rights advocates to victory is no easy task. And with unprecedented threats to Roe v. Wade, the challenge is even greater. But that’s not stopping Aimee Arrambide, the new head of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas. The native Texan was named the statewide executive director this week following Heather Busby‘s departure in March. Arrambide officially begins on Sept. 1.
Arrambide previously served as a reproductive rights policy specialist at the Public Leadership Institute, where she helped craft a pro-choice playbook of model legislation that statehouses can use to combat destructive abortion laws. That playbook inspired a City Council “Abortion is Healthcare” resolution last January and influenced a handful of pro-choice bills at the last legislative session. “I want to shift the focus from playing defense against bad bills to being on the offense,” she tells us. “That means pushing proactive policies that assert our values.”
The UT-Austin and New York Law grad says her passion for abortion rights stems from her father, a former abortion doctor. She’s spent the majority of her professional career in the reproductive rights and justice movement; she interned with the Center for Reproductive Rights and ACLU and is currently a board member at Fund Texas Choice and a storyteller at the National Network of Abortion Funds‘ We Testify program. She’s also no stranger to NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, having interned there in 2006 and serving later as the director of public affairs.
“I think in reaction to the Trump administration’s extreme reproductive health policies, people are actually more willing to voice support for abortion access,” she says. “It’s a pivotal time, and as a woman of color, I hope to lift up and amplify the voices of those marginalized and hit hardest by anti-choice laws.”
This article appears in August 31 • 2018.