‘Millennial’ Misunderstandings and the Movement For Reproductive Justice

In her feature on the supposed generational divide in the pro-choice movement, which ran in Sunday’s New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg correctly observes that abortion has hit the headlines recently in the context of health care reform and the horrendously restrictive Stupak amendment—and it’s not something reproductive rights advocates are happy about.  But there isn’t much else I can relate to in her assessment of the current landscape in reproductive rights advocacy and activism.  In fact, I think the story—which argues that there is a chasm between the “menopausal militia,” meaning the generation of feminists who came of age before Roe v. Wade and view abortion in “stark political terms,” and the “millennials,” the younger set for whom Stolberg suggests abortion is a personal issue—misses the mark in a sad but revealing way.

Relying on quotes from Naral Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan, Stolberg promotes this political/personal dichotomy without actually explaining how this supposed shift to the personal manifests itself—other than the fact that the post-Roe generations seem less responsive to single-issue pro-choice calls to action.  Provocative accompanying artwork, which consists of a black rectangle with brightly colored letters spelling “WE” floating above “ME,” implies that younger women are selfish in neglecting abortion politics.  Yet Stolberg acknowledges that “a clear majority of Americans support the right to abortion, and there’s little evidence of a difference between those over 30 and under 30.”  In fact, she herself points to several examples of young people organizing right now to stop the Stupak amendment (including LSRJ’s recent webinar on abortion and health care reform legislation).  So what’s the issue?

Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg concludes that young people don’t respond to email alerts about contacting their legislators because they know abortion is legal and believe “if you really need one you can probably figure out how to get one.”  Which means not only are we selfish, but we’re also foolishly complacent.  But what about the millions of poor women, immigrant women, and young women who can’t ever “figure out how to get one” because the barriers we’ve erected to accessing legal abortion are simply too high?  Such women may be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term or to induce an abortion through other means, with serious consequences for the health and security of themselves and their families.  And what about those of us who aren’t poor, immigrant, or under 18 but believe deeply that how our society treats those women reflects on all of us, individually and collectively? 

It’s true that I probably don’t respond to the action alerts that fill my inbox as often as I should.  But I resent the suggestion that my entire generation and I are indifferent.  I think the most telling part of the story is when Stolberg characterizes coalition-building with immigrant rights and LGBT rights group as a “tactic” to draw young people into reproductive rights activism, as if the movement’s leaders are waging war against younger activists.  (To be fair, it’s unclear whether Choice USA executive director Kierra Johnson used the word “tactic” or if that’s Stolberg’s spin.)  Either way, this doesn’t leave much room to consider whether the 37 additional years of politics played out on women’s bodies since Roe might have led us to a more nuanced understanding of how the struggle for reproductive freedom fits within a larger social justice frame.  Perhaps the moms and dads concerned with comprehensive sex education for their kids or the under-25 crowd organizing around environmental justice and LGBT rights—all of whom are implicitly faulted for not caring enough about abortion—simply get that single-issue activism isn’t enough.  That’s the conclusion countless reproductive justice activists have reached, understanding that reproductive justice will be achieved when all people have the political, economic, and social power to make decisions about our health, bodies, and sexuality for ourselves, our families, and our communities.

Choice USA’s Johnson says young people are “coming at these issues in a much more complex way.”  If so, the pro-choice movement doesn’t need to dedicate its precious resources to running focus groups to discern how the “millennials” think.  We should instead use those resources to support creative and wide-reaching organizing efforts, informed by reproductive justice values that recognize coalition-building as an inherent part of the work, not merely a new tactic to be employed instrumentally.  And as for the New York Times, I think the idea of a generational divide along a personal/political axis unravels by the end of the piece.  The real story is why when a majority of Americans has consistently favored abortion rights for the last couple of decades our Congress and President are (again) willing to sacrifice women’s health in the face of some tough politics.