Rogelio V. Solis/AP Photo
Pro-abortion volunteers with the Pink House Defenders in Jackson, Mississippi
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.
That is especially true in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to hear Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, a case involving Jackson’s Pink House. In May, the Court said it would consider the challenge to the state’s recent law to ban abortion after 15 weeks. This will be the first abortion case the Court will hear that directly threatens Roe v. Wade. (If the Court overturns Roe, it would be up to states whether abortions remain legal.)
The provocative tactics of pro-life advocates have caught the attention of those new to the abortion cause.
According to nearly a dozen young reproductive-health activists, Trump’s presidency and his judicial nominations pushed young people to action. With their attention riveted by Supreme Court confirmation hearings in childhood bedrooms, college libraries, and first apartments, young people accepted that a successful challenge to legal abortion might be imminent. So when the Court decided to hear a case that could overturn Roe v. Wade, few of them were surprised.
“This case just feels like what we saw coming when Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Barrett were confirmed to the Supreme Court,” says Jessica Morandi, a rising senior at Harvard University who interned with the nonprofit Abortion Access Front. “This is just really the fears that were discussed then coming true.”
Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University and author of Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present, says that up until recently, pro-choice establishment groups were concerned that younger people were not particularly active in the movement. “Some of the older activists believed younger people took for granted that Roe would be there,” she says. “It was unimaginable that there’d be another reality because they had grown up with it.”
The provocative tactics of pro-life advocates have caught the attention of those new to the abortion cause. In addition to hoisting posters of aborted fetuses and screaming at patients as they enter abortion clinics, some pro-life activists have even created Wi-Fi accounts near clinics with names like “Don’t Kill Your Baby.” And in March, a pro-life group bought a parking lot opposite an abortion clinic in Toledo, Ohio, so that its members would be within shouting distance of patients.
These right-wing tactics have inspired a bullish countermovement. In the last decade, a decentralized network of abortion activists has pushed beyond the well-endowed and established organizations like Planned Parenthood, providing emotional and physical support for people seeking out abortions at the local level.
Reproductive-justice advocacy has started early, in some cases. In central Minnesota at Eagan High School, a group of recent graduates lobbied their school district to revamp its sex education curriculum, to include the issue of consent and LGBTQ-specific sex education, among other points. The way the students see it, there’s a clear sex education–to–abortion access pipeline; protecting abortions goes only so far if there are barriers to patients’ understanding of reproductive health.
“When young people are given the information they need to make their own choices, to make healthy and safe choices, comprehensive sex ed can quite literally save and change lives,” says Claudia Liverseed, a recent graduate of Eagan High School and one of the advocates who pushed for the reform. Liverseed is active in another program, led by Planned Parenthood, to pass similar comprehensive sex education through Minnesota’s state legislature.
“I am again and again telling adults around me to get out of the way,” says Kat Otto, a Planned Parenthood community organizer in Minnesota who mentored Liverseed and her fellow students on their sex education initiative. “These are the leaders. We need to listen to them. They are already doing the work.”
The larger movement of pro-abortion advocacy in many ways mirrors the drive at Eagan High School. The new wave of activism is pushing for greater inclusivity in the movement by bringing the LGBTQ community and people of color to the fore.
Solange Azor, 25, has volunteered and worked for abortion access funds and nonprofits since seeking out her own abortion while a junior in college. “I really got disillusioned with abortion organizing for a second because of rampant transphobia,” she says, adding that the movement had been dominated by white, straight, older women. While organizing, she was often the youngest person by ten years.
This sort of intersectional action—viewing abortion access as a racial, gender, and economic issue—is driven by young people. Azor says that the same young activists are changing the language around abortion.
The youthful brand of abortion activism is also placing greater emphasis on emotional care, addressing the myriad pressures associated with the decision to pursue an abortion.
“Abortion was previously only a women’s issue,” says A.P. Montesi, a 23-year-old volunteer with Pinkhouse Defenders. “But now it’s really about the LGBTQ community as well, and how it affects trans men. That was just absent in the older pro-abortion movement, and something that the younger generation has added.”
But young pro-abortion activists have come face-to-face with the difficulties of making progress on their agenda. Eagan High School administrators have delayed any real consideration of a change in curriculum, and the statewide bill in Minnesota has failed in three consecutive legislative sessions, amid pushback from lawmakers.
States like Mississippi and Arkansas have already passed such restrictive laws—requiring a 72-hour wait period or parental consent, for instance—that abortions are essentially out of reach for many residents. Activists and nonprofits are still working to fight for policy change, such as lobbying for the Women’s Health Protection Act, a congressional initiative that would protect abortion access through legislation instead of the judiciary. But these groups have also devised other ways to support abortion-seekers, working around pre-existing legal restrictions and socioeconomic barriers to protect abortion access, even if their state does not.
Abortion funds, which are organizations that raise money to help low-income people pay for abortions, have recently put historically marginalized people at the center of the movement. A prime example is the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF), a nonprofit organization that coordinates dozens of chapters nationwide. NNAF first began operating in the wake of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, a Supreme Court decision that opened the floodgates for restrictive abortion laws in 1992.
“[NNAF] had a huge transformation in the last five to ten years where they were basically like, ‘We need Black and indigenous people and queer people in charge here,’” says Azor. “And we’re seeing more of that.” Since 2015, Yamani Hernandez has led the organization as the executive director. On her website, she describes herself as a “visionary and strategic, queer, Black, Buddhist leader committed to radical compassion and healing justice.”
The movement has shifted from protecting only legal rights to instead placing a greater emphasis on access. “One of the weaknesses historically of the pro-choice movement has been a lack of interest in access,” says Ziegler. “You’ve seen much more organizing around the availability of abortion pills or the availability for people to travel to places where they could get an abortion than we’ve ever seen before. People are planning for a world in which Roe is no longer.”
The youthful brand of abortion activism is also placing greater emphasis on emotional care, addressing the myriad pressures associated with the decision to pursue an abortion. Doulas have stepped in to provide one-on-one care during every stage of the abortion process. With over half the country under some degree of abortion restrictions, doulas help patients navigate the onslaught of logistical hurdles. Their services embody the new form of decentralized, local abortion advocacy work that young people are championing nationwide.
Major nonprofit organizations have already emphasized legal and financial access. But the care component—focusing on emotional hardship—was largely neglected. Azor, who is a certified doula herself, says that is starting to change. “All the abortion doulas that I know are just young people who are really excited,” she says.
For Azor, her own involvement has been energized by watching individual states, especially Republican strongholds, restrict abortion access. “Bringing imagination to political work is how incredible movements happen and how progress happens,” she says.
