Nancy Keenan Responds to Newsweek Article on Young Pro-Choice Activists

If you don't like the way the paragraph comes off, then maybe you shouldn't have expressed the sentiments and provided the quotes which make up the paragraph. If find it outrageous that you would say there isn't passion among young women in the choice movement. Did you actually attend the March for Women's Lives? You can back track now, but the fact of the matter is that Sarah Kliff did not make up the quotes, they came out of your mouth.

This type of infighting is why they are winning. Prove Keenan wrong, don't complain about what she says. P.S. I am a young activist.

Older people who come from a different political framework that precludes them from understanding the new global-market-driven context of today's youth's political involvement shouldn't be allowed to comment on youth politics as experts.

As Bob says, "Your old road is rapidly aging, please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand." Figure out how new politics works and engage, or stick to the outdated modes of yore and spout nonsensical dementedness about how great your politics once were.

The difference between old and young political people isn't a difference at all but rather a difference between the worlds we grew up in. Our context is different so it's unfair, not to mention idiotic, to frame our activism and politics through an obsolete framework. You just can't compare 1970's-style activism to today's activism because the possibility for the former DOESN'T EXIST ANYMORE.

When young women are fed up (not "annoyed") with being unappreciated by institutionalized feminism, they go to the Internet and get to say what they want. Institutions create binary systems and the multi-dimensional possibilities for politics that the Internet offers don't leave time for "either/or" binaries of politics. We are putting political institutions, including institutionalized feminism, out of business with our more nuanced politics so I find it hilarious to be called apathetic by groups who haven't yet realized how very obsolete they are. We still need feminism, but it's an ideology not an institution.

Remember, withdrawing from institutionalized politics in disgust is not the same as apathy.

The "passion gap" or "intensity gap" is not difficult to understand. It's easier to get passionate about saving innocent human life than it is to get passionate about destroying it, however necessary one may consider such destruction to be. That is especially true of the young. So Ms. Keenan should not have been surprised at what she saw.

The anger in some of these posts is very sad to see. By no means was Keenan insinuating that there aren't young activists out there doing all they can. She was simply speaking out to the millions of young Americans out who are pro-choice, but don't currently recognize the fragility of abortion rights in this country.

The article in Newsweek really spoke to me. As a woman who recently underwent an abortion in a horrific clinic that treated the patients like cattle in a slaughterhouse, I now realize that,in addition to my continued therapy to get over this horrible experience, I must take action to ensure that other women have access to better reproductive healthcare.

Ms. Keenan, you are a personal hero of mine and a giant in the pro-choice movement. It's with all due respect that I respectfully request you acknowledge the youth in our movement. I'm with melba up above, these words came out of your mouth. Furthermore it reeks of "when I was a kid I had to walk uphill both ways" attitude. How exactly is that going to energize anyone?

Honor, support and encourage young feminists because they aren't just the future, they are on the ground now.

The negativity towards the pro-choice movement quite often is that it is taken as 'pro-abortion' --- what woman in wants to have an abortion... Women don't get pregnant to have abortions... get real. But there are those out there that actually believe we are fighting this fight because we are fighting for abortion when, in fact, we are fighting for the right to CHOOSE... there is a difference... a big difference. This is not about abortion, it is about choice and if that right goes away, women will DIE and nobody thinks about that, all they think about is the 'A' word and we have to get them thinking beyond that.

Thanks for taking the time to correct the impression left in the article --- and you're right - young non-activists are much more likely to be complacent because they already have the right to an abortion - anti choice activists want something to change so they're more, well, active --- we need to make te rest of the world - those who care about abortion, and are pro choice, realize that it is possible for abortion to be illegal, to be made impossible to access - and to fight to change its status then will be too late for the women caught in the middle.

I would like to thank Ms. Keenan for explaining her Newsweek quote and highlighting NARAL's new research on young people and voting pro-choice. Her comments and the new research are focused on young people who consider themselves pro-choice but aren't at all likely to be vocal about it and as the research showed, aren't likely to vote based on being pro-choice either.

As a 28 year old Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut, I am what they consider a "millenial" and I too was initially offended by the Newsweek article. But, once I read this blog and understood what the research was trying to get at--Why the majority of young pro-choice women don't vote pro-choice-- I became frustrated for other reasons.

First of all, stop calling us post-Roe. That may be true, but it ignores and all but denies the fact that we grew up within an abortion context. Our context was one of extreme divisiveness, in which clinics were being bombed, doctors were being killed, and the Catholic Church told our friends and family members that abortion was wrong. I don't find it shocking at all that the young people surveyed in this poll didn't think the right to access abortion is in jeopardy, because I think that many young people have chosen to remove themselves from the debate. And for many "millenials" that's all that pro-choice/pro-life is...a debate, a fight, an argument that they would much rather ignore than take part in.

The second important thing highlighted by this research is that "millenials" are more likely to see abortion as a moral issue. Again, not shocked and again, consider our context. For many in my generation, religion was still a central part of the family life, that is until we came of age and were no longer required to attend. For years, many young people were taught by their religion or heard from the religion of others that abortion is wrong and unacceptable and so there is an inherent "guilt" associated with abortion.

It is important to note though, that millenials are less religious than older Americans and fewer young adults belong to any particular faith than older people do today. Regardless of our religious upbringing or current beliefs, I think that for many young people, religion isn't as black and white as it was for the generations before us. Morality & beliefs may influence our decisions but religion doesn't dictate them. So, when I hear that a young person can think abortion is wrong but not think it should be illegal, I understand. I may not agree with something, but that doesn't give me the right to tell someone else what to do.

Lastly, it's time to stop using the, "you never grew up in a time when abortion was illegal" in an accusatory way and start seeing that in context. You're right, abortion has always been legal for us, so telling us over and over again to "Keep Abortion Legal" seems stale and a little bit extreme. What we need to focus on, and NARAL Pro-Choice America does a good job of this, is the fact that while pro-lifers would rather continue debating over abortion, pro-choicers are interested in addressing the underlying reasons why women seek abortions in the first place--lack of sex education, cost of birth control, rape, incest, etc. Abortion must be kept legal because everyone's experience is different.

Lastly, can we have a re-count on "millenials"...really, who came up with that?

Brava, Nancy! I disagree with Feministing on this one. Pissing off the complacent bridezilla generation is the only way to begin this conversation. The majority of young women who consider themselves "progressive" and "hip" are too busy trying to convince young men that they are post-feminist and if anything, the few young women who do care ought to be the ones out in front kicking their butts into action. It would serve the entire generation right if all the postmenopausal militia simply walked off the job.

I'm not saying all of our generation is without fault in this. All, every last one, of the women of every generation who cheered on that disastrous so-called health insurance reform ought to be ashamed of themselves. It was passed only by sacrificing women's rights as citizens in this country. There is absolutely no excuse for that. Anyone who thinks our rights are not imperiled must've missed the private executive signing to continue the Henry Hyde Amendment...and in case you missed it, Obama made sure to invite Stupak to the White House to celebrate keeping women under their heel.