Jennifer Senior has a nuanced article about the current state of the abortion debate in this week’s New York magazine , in which she says that the current generation of twnetysomethings is the most anti-choice since the generation born during the great depression. I found this very upsetting, not just because I am pro-choice, but because the reason my peers are anti-choice is they have no sympathy or empathy for people who become pregnant accidentally. It’s not because of their more stringent religious or ethical beliefs-they’re anti-choice out of spite. “They feel much more strongly about personal responsibility than the generations preceding them: Didn’t use birth control? The burden’s on you ,” Senior writes.
There was also an article about the Stupak amendment and the abortion debate in the New York Times’ Week in Review section. Even the pro-choice twentysomethings are not fighting hard against the anti-choice tide because they take abortion for granted. The Times quotes Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg, who says, “For many [twentysomethings], the daily experience is: It’s legal and if you really need one you can probably figure out how to get one. So when we send out e-mail alerts saying, ‘Oh my God, write to your senator,’ it’s hard for young people to have that same sense of urgency.” If the amount of political support for Stupak is any indication, we may have that push to defend our rights sooner rather than later.
Photograph here and on the homepage by Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images.
