Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, is building an “army,” writes Katie McDonough in writing for Fusion about the Planned Parenthood Action Fund effort.
McDonough who can barely contain her excitement in writing about the summit event, profiles several young women, focusing mainly on Audrey Leonard, 18, rom Indiana. The summit was attended by nearly 1,000 people, most of whom McDonough says were under 30, took place earlier in May in Pittsburgh.
The event had a theme of the Power of Pink, with attendees including Leonardo emphasizing the need to increase voter turnout and reminding voters about the importance of local elections. The goals are objectively laudable ones, but there’s a narrow focus with an agenda. Planned Parenthood has lamented the passage of pro-life laws at the state and local levels, as do their supporters and the sympathetic mainstream media.
Reporting from ThinkProgress about the summit highlights a focus on money as well. Planned Parenthood is spending $20 million, the most they’ve ever spent, and not just for local races. The organization is aiming to elect Hillary Clinton to the White House and sympathetic pro-choice politicians to the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, with a hope to flip the Senate and eventually the House.
And for all these efforts, readers are somehow supposed to sympathize with these activists. “Leonard was in the Steel City, eating bland conference food and spending her afternoons troubleshooting strategies to get people on voter outreach lists to actually pick up their phones,” McDonough writes. Other efforts are described as “unglamorous, often dejecting work.” Welcome to campaigning. They’re not always fun, but that’s not why activists engage in them.
With the summit involving mostly young people, a picture is painted of the dueling younger pro-choice voter and the older, male pro-life voter:
But, polls show that young people are more pro-life than people think. And, Planned Parenthood isn’t the only organization mobilizing young people about abortion for 2016. Students for Life of America is engaging in efforts of their own, which includes exposing the practices of Planned Parenthood. And, SFLA chapters on campus far outweigh Planned Parenthood chapters.
Planned Parenthood and McDonough acknowledge the low turnout from young voters, which McDonough mentions is “really, really bad for organizations like Planned Parenthood.” It could be even worse if this pro-life demographic voted more.
