The New Pro-Abortion Generation
The New Pro-Abortion Generation
As Roe v. Wade faces its greatest challenge yet, young people are taking the reins to protect abortion access.
by Amelia Pollard
August 5, 2021
This article appears in the July/August 2021 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here.
Every day at the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, resembles trench warfare. Painted like a shade of bubble gum, the center has affectionately earned the nickname the “Pink House.” But its modern windows and copper roof are shielded from the street. Black plastic tarps and panels guard patients’ privacy by keeping the protesters out of eyesight.
Around a dozen anti-abortion protesters often show up with bullhorns and picket signs, while volunteers for the Pinkhouse Defenders, a nonprofit organization, thwart hecklers by blasting music and escorting patients from their cars to the clinic’s waiting room. In the last several months, volunteers have embraced TikTok as their weapon of choice, filming protesters and posting the videos on social media.
Sunna Savani, a second-year medical student at the University of Mississippi and a volunteer with the Pinkhouse Defenders, says Saturdays at the clinic are hectic. “They have street church with over 100 people, a mini-service blocking the roads,” she says, referring to worship services held in front of the abortion clinic. Savani is among the escorts who volunteer their time with the Defenders, 25 percent of whom are under the age of 30.
Abortions are as old as pregnancy itself. But abortion activism, especially in the United States, has entered a new era, with young people leading the charge against pro-life activists who have long made obtaining an abortion excruciatingly uncomfortable. (The trend to label the movement as “pro-abortion” rather than the more anodyne “pro-choice” typifies the blunt posture of today’s advocates.) And while there are still in-the-street protests, pro-abortion advocacy has felt more urgent and inclusive in recent years, primarily focusing on grassroots organizing.
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https://prospect.org/justice/the-new-pro-abortion-generation/
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