Planned Parenthood
and the Next Generation
of Feminist Activists
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 lowincome women access health care — to get her basic care and birth
control. When the governor of Texas cut funding for the Texas Women’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 leadership 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 country, 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 historically black college campuses. In the last presidential election — when
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women’s health was a defining and decisive issue — young people
voted in even greater numbers than they did in 2008. By a twentythree-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 expanding 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 headline in Nebraska’s Kearney Hub 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 similar polls that ask people about abortion in “pro-life” and “pro-choice”
terms get varied and seemingly contradictory answers. Anywhere
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from 41 to 54 percent of Americans say they’re “pro-choice,” with
38 to 50 percent saying they’re “pro-life.” A Public Religion Research
Institute poll from July 2012 found similar findings among communities of color. This poll’s findings were that, overall, 67 percent of black
Americans support access to safe, legal abortion, while almost half of
Hispanic Americans say it should be legal. But both African-Americans (52 percent of those polled) and Hispanic Americans (47 percent)
are also more likely to embrace either both labels or neither label.
Why the inconsistency? Planned Parenthood has conducted
extensive research over the last year to better understand how people
are relating to issues of safe and legal abortion so that we can move
the conversation forward in an effort to build and strengthen public
support. Here’s what we have learned: labels such as “pro-life” or
“pro-choice” are vague and don’t capture the complexity of abortion issues. Whether to choose adoption, end a pregnancy, or raise a
child is an intensely personal decision that can’t easily be reduced to
being “pro” or “anti” abortion. That’s why we see so many Americans — particularly young Americans — identifying as both “pro-life”
and “pro-choice,” or conversely, refusing to claim either position. A
vast majority of Americans think that politicians should not interfere
with abortion access and that abortion is a decision that should be
made by a woman in consultation with her health provider, her faith,
and her family. And what’s more, people fundamentally understand
that every situation is different; that every woman is different; and
that every woman should be able to make her own personal healthcare decisions.
We need to have a conversation about abortion that’s more empathetic. We don’t walk in other women’s shoes and we cannot impose
labels on women whose experiences differ from our own. And it’s not
our place to box people into the labels “pro-life” or “pro-choice.” By
refusing the labels, we can connect better with the public and — just
as importantly — connect with the next generation on their terms and
ensure we’re deepening their ties to the women’s health movement.
We know that most people agree that abortion must remain safe
and legal, that women must have access to birth control, and that
politicians should stay out of personal healthcare decisions. It’s more
important than ever that we maintain and intensify this support, not
least because attacks on women’s health are more ferocious than ever,
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and we know that opponents of safe, legal abortion won’t let public
opinion get in the way of their agenda. Over the past two years, we’ve
seen heightened attacks on women’s health, particularly abortion
access. These battles are being fought in state legislatures across the
country. In 2011, state legislatures nearly tripled the previous record
of provisions restricting abortion — one hundred and thirty-five, to be
exact. And in just the first half of 2012, states enacted thirty-nine new
provisions that restrict a woman’s access to safe and legal abortion.
Mandatory ultrasound laws have been enacted in three states. These
laws require that a doctor perform an ultrasound on a woman before
providing an abortion and, most disturbingly, require that doctors
make statements to their patients that are not rooted in science or
medicine. For example, state legislation passed in Texas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Louisiana require physicians to aim the screen
showing ultrasound images toward the woman and make a statemandated description audible to her. Other states have passed laws
that intend to regulate abortion providers out of existence. These
bills — signed into law in eight states— create onerous requirements
for abortion providers that have nothing to do with patient care and
everything to do with politics at its worst. These examples only represent a handful of the anti-women’s health laws we’ve seen at the
state level, but each of them is another example of politicians meddling in the most personal decisions that women make about their
health care.
There is no single strategy for winning all of these battles. In
fact, we know we’ll lose some of them in the short term. But we can
deepen our support among young people and diverse communities
and better position ourselves for victory over the long term. We can
do that by talking about abortion authentically and in empathetic
ways and by not forcing anyone into an ill fitting “pro” or “anti” box.
We can connect with as many people as possible by using language
that doesn’t turn people away but instead reaffirms their support for
abortion access.
So what does this new framework look like? How do we engage
in a conversation that doesn’t start with a “pro-choice” or “pro-life”
framework? We start a conversation with something as simple as “The
pro-choice and pro-life labels don’t reflect the conversation that’s
happening today. Instead of putting people into one category or
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another, we should respect the real-life decisions women and their
families face.” When we use language like this to start a conversation
about abortion, people respond differently. They understand that
this is not the same old divisive rhetoric — and they are more able to
talk authentically about this complex issue.
At the end of the day, we can only take this movement forward if
we meet people where they are and connect with them on this issue.
That’s how we can deliver on the promise of Roe v. Wade, the promise of
equity and equality that generations of women have fought for, the
promise of a world where women make their own decisions and have
full access to healthcare, no matter who they are or where they live.