How Do We Elect Pro-Choice Candidates? One Conversation at a Time.

Today is the day--Blog for Choice Day 2012! If you haven't signed up to blog yet, there's still time.

We want your thoughts in answering this question: What will you do to help elect pro-choice candidates in 2012?

It's an important question to ask today--the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that recognized a woman's constitutional right to choose safe, legal abortion.

The next president could nominate enough Supreme Court justices to determine the future of Roe v. Wade and women's constitutional right to choose for decades to come.

As a member of the Millennial Generation--the largest and most diverse generation in our nation's history--the idea that we could lose the rights our parents fought hard to win is truly shocking. We grew up with Roe v. Wade as the law of the land, and our generation is more pro-choice than the country overall. In fact, younger men are even more pro-choice than younger women.

Our challenge this year is to connect our personal values to what's going on in the political sphere--in the White House, Congress, the courts, and statehouses nationwide.

Here's how it works: we take our pro-choice values to the ballot box--and we take our friends, too, and our friends' friends. We send pro-choice champions to Congress, and a pro-choice president to the White House. We create a government that reflects the American people's values and priorities: that women's personal, private medical decisions should be made by women and their doctors--not politicians, not government.

Now, you might be saying, "Thomas, is that all I have to do? Just go out and win a bunch of elections? How do I even start?"

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

How do you elect pro-choice champions up and down the ballot?

One conversation at a time.

Let me tell you about a friend of mine. She strongly believes that decisions about abortion and birth control are too important--too deeply personal--to be left up to politicians. But, she also doesn't see what elections have to do with it. She finds politics distasteful, and is planning to stay home this November.

So, instead of talking about politics, we talk about birth control. The copay for her prescription has been going up, and it's getting to the point where she can no longer afford it.

I bring up the new no-cost birth control policy under the health-care law--starting in August, her insurance will cover her birth control without a copay.

Furthermore, the Obama administration resisted pressure from anti-contraception groups to allow many employers, including universities and hospitals, to refuse to cover birth control.

The administration's action ensures millions of women will have access to contraception coverage.

Pretty awesome, huh?

But, wait: if an anti-choice president takes office in January, we might be looking at the end of the health-care law. Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.)--the current frontrunner for the Republican nomination--says the whole health-care law "must be repealed."

Sayonara, no-cost birth control!

So, whether or not my friend can continue to afford her prescription depends on who wins the presidential election. Politics doesn't get more personal than that.

Think about it: we all have that friend. And we all have a conversation waiting to be had. It doesn't have to center around Supreme Court decisions or who's leading in what poll. It's just a chat that connects what's going on in our lives with what goes on in Washington and state capitals.

And that conversation, multiplied by millions of pro-choice Americans in millions of living rooms, is how we win elections.

I'll be having this conversation a lot this year. Will you?

Paid for by NARAL Pro-Choice America, www.ProChoiceAmerica.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.