Want To Keep Women’s Reproductive Rights On The Forefront? Support Mejuri Founder, Noura Sakkijha, And Sophia Bush’s Year Of Action

“The ERA was ratified in 2020 and finally got its 38th state, and has not been added to our Constitution. The amendment doesn't exist because lawmakers have said that it took too long to ratify so it's not relevant anymore. Most people don't know that's the case.” These are the words of actor and activist, Sophia Bush, during an interview.

The information Bush presents points to the broad-ranging stalls towards women’s equality in the United States. Although the topic at hand during the interview is not the Equal Rights Amendment, but Bush’s work with Canada-based jewelry brand, Mejuri, who is taking an active response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Mejuri’s founder, Noura Sakkijha, has recently created a conglomerate of brands under the banner called Year of Action Committee put together to support Don’t Ban Equality, a coalition which includes over 700 broad-ranging businesses spanning mega-agencies such as Creative Artists Agency and retailers such as Nordstrom in support of women’s reproductive rights.

“When we established Year of Action we went to Planned Parenthood and asked, ‘Okay, what do you need?’, so in our minds we were ready to start a donation campaign or something similar,” says Sakkijha. “But I think what was very surprising was their response, which was, ‘We need your platforms.’”

For Sakkijha, it was a no-brainer to galvanize Mejuri’s already-engaged community and recruit other brands with their communities to activate their platforms “in order to become a resource and not normalize what's going on.” So, the Year of Action Committee was born.

The core concept of the committee is to leverage the platforms of brands, influencers, celebrities, and activists involved to keep women’s health rights at the forefront through amplification of this conversation through the Committee’s channels. It’s hoped the result is positive change which ensures women have full rights over their healthcare decisions in the era of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Mejuri, which is described as an everyday fine jewelry brand, was one of the first jewelry companies on the market which empowered women to shop fine jewelry for themselves. With the tag-line “Fine jewelry for my damn self,” Sakkijha and Mejuri encouraged women to break away from the decades-old notion jewelry should be gifted to women by men.

This sense of empowerment is bred into the brand’s DNA has helped drive Mejuri’s public outreach over the years, which includes everything from the sponsorship of NPR’s All Things Considered Podcast to the support of scholarships for the United Negro College Fund, the Jeanette Rankin Women’s Scholarship Fund, and the Black Business and Professional Association Scholarships.

“When Roe v. Wade was overturned it was a very intuitive thing for us to take a stance on what happened. And to us, it's a matter of women's access to health,” says Sakkijha, who launched Year of Action to meet the public exactly where they are.

“The idea was to educate people and ask ourselves what are the things we all do everyday when we interact with the world around us,” explains Bush. “We go to the grocery store, we make purchases, we interact with brands on social media. So we thought, if brands could highlight the truth of what's happening, perhaps we could educate more people.”

For Bush, education is key.

Labeled by CNN as one of the 10 Most Charitable Celebrities alongside the likes of Bono, Jon Bon Jovi, and Sir Paul McCartney, Bush’s stance on this facet of her activism stems from the public’s lack of understanding of the system itself.

“I think for me as a storyteller, it's incredibly clear that politics are personal. And policy in particular affects everything about our lives,” Bush says. “I think as we see a society that has been divesting from civics education, we've split ourselves and we've bifurcated people from the truth of what affects their lives most. For example, our economy—it’s based in our policy and who we support. Even how we move in the world is based in our policy.”

Bush continues, “I think if people understand the container of our lives are shaped by the policies that we live in, we would all be able to change society for the better, much more quickly.”

From the perspective of a business owner and founder, Sakkijha considered the potentially polarizing effect of taking this type of stance to her consumer base, both existing and potential.

“We knew we were going to create some strong reactions towards what we're doing, so our thought process was, for sure, that this is going to alienate some people. But we have to stand for something and this is aligns with what we believe in,” explains the founder. “And we made peace with the idea that it might actually alienate some people. And it did.”

Mejuri under Sakkijha’s leadership views women’s health as more than the right to abortion, they take a 360-degree approach to supporting their female staff in their healthcare decisions. This value has been baked into the company ethos and a solid foundation has been built around it, so much so that Mejuri supports all women’s health issues, going as far as to subsidize IVF treatments for their employees.

“It’s about equal access. I take away politics and I think about it mainly from a women's health standpoint–you have to design life, you have to access healthcare equally, you have to have access to the services that help you to take care of your health, whatever choices you make,” Sakkijha says. “You have the right to design your life.”

For the founder, who admits she cares immensely about metrics such as KPIs, it’s hardly a surprise that macroeconomics are also of importance to Sakkijha. She explains the people most affected by the inability to make individual healthcare decisions are typically the people who don’t have the means, and she is correct.

Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, stated before congress the overturning of Roe v. Wade “would set women back decades” economically, while it’s widely agreed the overturning of the amendment would drastically affect women’s participation in the labor force, lower their incomes, and spur an increase in the rates of poverty and debt.

“The reality of this inequality–the gender lending gap, the wage gap, inequality in housing–all of this, is that it not only hurts the people being oppressed, but it hurts the entire economy,” emphasizes Bush.

So what are the perfect outcomes for this Committee?

“I think for me, it's equal access to healthcare for women to be able to design their lives the way that they dream of. And this is essentially the perfect outcome,” answers Sakkijha.

Bush, however, believes the most perfect outcome is one where society leans into the very basics of the belief system of the United States to find answers.

“I don't know what a perfect scenario is. I know factually this nation is not a theocracy. In our laws is enshrined the right to freedom of belief. And the notion that someone's belief—that isn't mine, and that isn't yours—affects our medical lives and flies in the face of what every trusted medical community in the country and around the world says to be true, is unacceptable,” answers Bush.

“What would be lovely for me, personally, would be a reminder that our Constitution promises us freedom from the tyranny of someone else's belief. I think that's a really important place to get back to. And I think that has to be ground zero.”