The AP discovers that young women care about reproductive rights

Posted at 2:18 PM Dec 22, 2009

By Andrea Grimes

​A few years ago, after I made a few choice donations to a few choice non-profits, I received a sticker in the mail. It was from NOW, and in bright blue and white, it read--nay, practically shouted--KEEP ABORTION LEGAL. I was fresh out of college, and in the midst of a Bush White House, I knew that my right to control my own reproductive functions was in no way safe and guaranteed. Any young woman with access to a newspaper--I think us kids maybe still read them at that point-- or the internet knew that reproductive choice was and had been under attack by the religious right, conservatives and most Republicans for some time.

Don't tell the Associated Press, though. They seem to think that the recent health care debate has prompted all the twentysomething feminists to feel shock and amazement that our reproductive health rights have suddenly become challenged. The broad brush strokes are worthy of a New York Times style piece:

Among many younger feminists, the matter of abortion rights, so central to the women's movement of the 1970s, does not confer the urgency it once did. For them, abortion is now part of a "reproductive justice" portfolio that also includes access to birth control and improving health care for poor and minority women.

Just as second wave feminism was hardly a one-issue movement, third-wave and post-feminism are not one-issue movements, nor are they movements so scattered in focus that they forgot that women have wombs that people like to tell them what to do with. Forgive me, but activists in the 1960's cared passionately about increasing access to newly available contraception and women's health care, did they not? This is a new thing?

The article's biggest sin, however, is its bizarre assertion that only just now did women start to become ambivalent about the actual practice of abortion. Apparently every 1970s feminist was a heartless babykiller:

Then there's the ambivalence around abortion that's crept into the debate, as medical care has been able to save extremely premature infants and ultrasounds now can reveal a fetal heartbeat at the earliest stages of gestation.

While most young feminists firmly believe in abortion rights, they're also confronting the mixed feelings many women have about a procedure older activists fought to make safe and legally available.

Breaking news: women have mixed feelings about abortion and are not lining up to get them like the latest it-bag! Apparently this happened in the last 20 minutes!

Altogether, the article presents an oversimplified, tired, grown-ups vs. kids argument that the media generally can't seem to get away from. It was a favorite point of discussion, it seems, during the '08 Democratic Primary, wherein those old fogey Clinton-supporting feminists were all pissed off at the young sexy feminists for supporting Obama, because all women do is argue and bitchfight all day long, right? Yawn.

Truth is, women of all ages are fighting against Stupak/Nelson, because feminists of all ages recognize that women are the bargaining chip of choice for our elected representatives in this particular debate.