Petition Congress by Text
Text RESIST to 50409

TEMPLATES & OTHER WAYS TO PETITION CONGRESS

If you’d like to reach out to your district’s U.S. Representatives and/or U.S. Senators throughout the year and in more traditional ways, see below for a few options that are available year-round.

Petition Congress via Facebook

To get in touch with your elected officials via Facebook, the first step is to click here to find the names and contact information of your district's elected officials, based on your zip code and address. Next, see if your elected officials are on Facebook. If yes, you would tag them, and then make a post just as you normally do on social media, or you can use Facebook’s Town Hall feature to do so. 

As for what to write, you could copy & paste the template letter we’ve provided below, or feel free to write your own message, about why it’s urgent that Congress works with endometriosis patient advocacy groups to establish an Endometriosis National Action Plan, just like the Australian government and other countries have already done, or are in the process of completing. 

Petition Congress via email or mail

Just like the Facebook option, in order to correspond to your district’s elected officials by email or mail, the first step is to click here to find the names and contact information of your district's elected officials, based on your zip code and address. As for what to write, you can also feel free to copy & paste our template letter you’ll see at the end of this page, or feel free to write your own message about why you think it’s important that Congress establish a national action plan to help with one of the most urgent public health emergencies of our era. 

Template Letter

Dear U.S. Senators and Congressional Representatives:

I am one of the thousands of endometriosis advocates who’ll be supporting the Worldwide Endometriosis March (EndoMarch) taking place on Saturday, March 28, 2020, in dozens of cities around the world, including in the U.S. cities of Boston, Columbus, Chicago, Detroit, Long Island, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

CRUEL, CRIPPLING, AND INCURABLE
Endometriosis is an incurable, chronic disease that can potentially cause incapacitating pain, organ dysfunction, infertility, and other severe and sometimes life-threatening medical consequences like lung collapse & kidney failure if inadequately treated.

Endometriosis has been described as one of the most painful diseases on record, is the third leading cause of gynecologic hospitalization, and is one of the leading causes of the estimated 600,000 hysterectomies performed each year in the U.S. (despite the fact that a hysterectomy cannot actually cure endometriosis).

WHOLE-BODY DISEASE
However, endometriosis is not just a reproductive tract disease, but one which can potentially cause severe chronic symptoms throughout the entire body, such as system-wide crippling pain, severe chronic fatigue, immune & endocrinologic dysfunction, and damage to multiple organs and tissues, including the bowel, bladder, ureters, diaphragm, muscles, musculoskeletal structures, nerves, lungs, and liver.

And, although one rarely hears about it in the news, endometriosis is actually common, affecting at least 1 in 10 women, girls, and transgender individuals, usually of reproductive age. That works out to a disease which is nearly as common as diabetes in women, affecting roughly 10 million people in the U.S. and approximately 200 million worldwide.

DEVASTATING DISEASE STILL LARGELY IGNORED
Despite these alarming facts, endometriosis continues to be one of the most urgent yet ignored public health issues of our time, and those afflicted face unacceptably lengthy diagnostic delays of up to 10 years or more. Some have even gone 20-40 years without a proper diagnosis.

This is truly appalling and we ask today:

‘How many more women and girls will be harmed before endometriosis is recognized as an urgent public health issue?’

A BILL FOR THE 116th CONGRESS
With gynecologic-related diseases still steeped in stigma, it’s been an uphill battle to get the issue of endometriosis covered in the news. That’s why it would mean so much to the millions of endometriosis sufferers across our nation, whose lives have been devastated by this invisible disease, if you would help champion a task force or bill to get endometriosis recognized as an urgent public health issue, deserving of more NIH research funding. We also need an HHS-backed nationwide awareness campaign in public schools, where young girls first begin missing so much school, have their incapacitating symptoms dismissed as normal, and are even denied medical care altogether because so many end up being falsely labeled as drug-seekers or malingerers.

60+ COUNTRIES MARCHING WITH US
Our sister chapters from over 60+ countries will also be marching with us on EndoMarch Day. We hope you as well will consider supporting this global movement, so that we can be the generation that finally takes a stand against centuries of silence, suffering, and shame. After all, women shouldn’t have to march in the streets in the first place to receive basic medical care. The millions who suffer from a disease described as more painful than child birth labor deserve better.

Thank you for considering our cause.

Sincerely,
An Endometriosis Advocate & Concerned Citizen
Constituent of the [insert your state & congressional district]