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Have Period, Will Rally: Let Young Women Speak for Ourselves about Abortion Rights
I am shaking with anger.
Newsweek is bringing that same tired old narrative back:
Young women don't care about abortion rights.
The only visible women fighting for reproductive justice belong to a "menopausal militia."
Young women don't understand what older generations have done for them.
Young women need to be educated about what is at stake.
Young women are not passionate about abortion rights.
Once again, the media is making this claim without interviewing a single young woman.
News flash:
Young women are absolutely fired up about abortion rights. We believe in full reproductive justice.
We do phone-a-thons for abortion rights. We escort outside clinics. We write op-eds. We are on TV. We are all over the Internet.
We organize rallies and marches around the country. We bring pro-choice license plates to states as conservative as Virginia.
We create Twitter petitions when Newsweek publishes an irresponsible story.
We are transforming the reproductive justice movement in partnership with older women. We are intersectional, inclusive, and don't use cliches like "political football" and "bargaining chip" to describe our fundamental human rights.
We are not cliches.
We are not invisible.
We are available to be interviewed the next time you wish to write about us.
And by the way, I believe it was a post-menopausal Speaker who allowed the Stupak Amendment to come to the floor in the House, not an under-30 activist fighting for her rights.
Feminism has always confused me. You fight against any man who tells you how to lead your life yet groups like NOW are the ones who tell women what to think and do.
I think you have a difficulty excepting the fact that not everyone thinks the way you do. Truth be told, the vast majority of women are not obsessed with gender issues. In fact, the women I know in college think your movement is ridiculous. (Personally, I find you guys interesting) I'm able to disagree with someone and not think they're wrong. I'm not sure your movement is capable of doing the same thing.
I'm sorry if I'm being harsh, but thank god not everyone thinks the same way. Just think how boring society would become.
My position on abortion? I'm too much of a narcissistic to really care what other people do. However, if I was ever in a position where I got a women pregnant, I would want her to keep it. Obviously, the decision is ultimately up to her but I certainly have my own moral beliefs and have every right to incorporate my opinion on something of such great importance. Genetically, whats growing in her body is half mine and if she chooses birth, I'm legally and ethically responsible to support that child. On my part, I'm a responsible guy when it comes to birth control so I hope to avoid this situation. Actually, if a woman became pregnant and chooses an abortion, I really wouldn't want to know about it.
Keep in mind that this is one guys opinion and as a man, I have no idea what its like to face the decision of a potential abortion. It must be a difficult situation to confront. I believe women aren't doing anything malicious when terminating a pregnancy and its not a procedure they enjoy. With that said, keep abortion legal. If it doesn't have an impact on me, its really none of my business.
I'll try to state this as succinctly as possible: being against abortion is not incompatible with being for abortion rights. Whether to have an abortion and whether to have abortion rights are completely separate issues. Pro-choice beliefs encompass precisely what they purport to-- the conviction that a woman has the right to make a choice regarding her own body. Regardless of that decision's outcome-- the struggle is for the legal preservation of the right to make that decision.
So, therefore, your facetious query as to whether young women who are against abortion are "wrong" or 'misinformed" is a completely irrelevant line of questioning, particularly since a stance embracing legal abortion does not even weigh on what that choice should be. Obviously, this is completely circumstance-dependent.
This confusion between abortion and abortion rights leaks into your second argument, where you observe that NOW must be hypocritical for telling women what to do, while rallying against similar oppression from men. Again-- supporting abortion rights and defending legal abortion each have nothing to do with affecting the choice a woman faces when deciding whether to terminate a pregnancy.
Disregarding your next dubious conclusion (to wit, that since women you know think NOW is ridiculous, all or most women think NOW is ridiculous), you state that NOW has trouble accepting disagreement. Since you, once again, completely mischaracterize the issue, your argument does not logically follow. In actuality, those against abortion rights are they who are "tell[ing] women what to think or do," while being pro-choice embraces a woman's autonomy and authority to make a decision regarding her own body. NOW can therefore have no trouble with disagreement because it is, in fact, inviting discord. Make your own choice. Weigh your own values. This is the very antithesis of telling people what to do.
Confusingly, you end with a qualified keep-abortion-legal stance. So, perhaps fittingly, I have a chance to echo your mantra: yes, I disagree with you, but I don't think you're wrong.
There's a link on our website, www.citizensforchoice.org
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