Planned Parenthood and the Next Generation of Feminist Activists

Abstract

Planned Parenthood and theNext Generation ofFeministActivists Dawn Laguens Julisa is twenty-three. She's a sociology major at the University of Texas-Pan American. She can't afford health insurance, and she relies on the Texas Women's Health Program—a program helping low income women access health care—to get her basic care and birth control. When the governor of Texas cut funding for the Texas Wom en's Health Program, and specifically targeted Planned Parenthood, Julisa didn't sit idly by: she became a youth activist, spoke at rallies, and traveled across the state to be trained on advocacy and leader ship so that she could better organize her fellow college students. She ignited a movement on her college campus. Julisa isn't alone. The unprecedented attacks on women's health over the last two years have given rise to a new generation of activists, and we have seen it firsthand at Planned Parenthood. We see the surge in youth support for women's health at every rally we hold around the coun try,and we see it every time we look at our Facebook and Twitter pages. We've gained 1.5 million new supporters who are more ethnically and generationally diverse than ever before. Over the past two years, we've almost doubled the number of Planned Parenthood campus chapters—including a significant uptick in involvement on histori cally black college campuses. In the last presidential election —when FeministStudies39, no. 1. © 2013 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 187 i88 Dawn Laguens women's health was a defining and decisive issue—young people voted in even greater numbers than they did in 2008. By a twenty three-point margin, they voted for President Obama, who made women's health a centerpiece of his campaign. It would not be a stretch to say that this is the most diverse and progressive generation we have seen in decades. For years, the conventional wisdom has been that feminism is yesterday's fight — that younger generations aren't as supportive or as engaged, particularly when it comes to abortion. It is simply not the case, though, that young people are less supportive of safe and legal abortion. What we have found is that young people think about—and talk about—these issues differently. If we want to continue expand ing our support with younger people, then we need to change the way we communicate with them. Nearly two-thirds of voters under thirty believe that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll. Our own internal polls indicate that among eighteen to twenty-nine year olds, more than eight in ten say that the issue of abortion is important to them personally, a higher rate than any other age group. But this is also a generation that doesn't want to be labeled. They don't like being singularly defined by their political party, or their sexual orientation, or their views on abortion. Increasingly, the broader public—and particularly young adults— also no longer self-identifies as "pro-choice" or "pro-life." When Gallup released its annual poll using these terms, some media outlets rushed to report that the number of pro-choice Americans was in a sharp decline. "Americans have turned against abortion," screamed a head line in Nebraska's KearneyHub newspaper. In fact, what had dropped was just support for the label "pro-choice." The same Gallup poll that showed only 41 percent of people identifying as "pro-choice" also showed that fully 77 percent believe abortion should be legal in most or all circumstances. We have seen this trend of resisting labels in virtually all of the recent polling on the issue. A Quinnipiac poll taken in February 2012 found that nearly two-thirds of Americans support Roe v.Wade,with a mere 31 percent disagreeing with the historic court decision. But sim ilar polls that ask people about abortion in "pro-life" and "pro-choice" terms get varied and seemingly contradictory answers. Anywhere Dawn Laguens 189 from 41 to 54 percent of Americans say they're "pro-choice," with 38 to 50 percent saying they're "pro-life." A...