As a child of the 80s, I realize there are many fights I’ve been lucky enough to miss because of the throw down activism of generations of women before me. From the right to vote to Title IX to Roe, women have been paving the way so that my generation and those that follow are not treated differently simply because we have vaginas.

But low and behold, in 2012, we are revisiting a fight that few of my generation ever thought we’d have to engage in: the fight over birth control.

When I was deciding what college was best for me, I looked at schools based on the types of degrees they offered, the quality of the faculty, the professor-student ratio, financial aid availability and more. I ended up attending Georgetown University because of its School of Foreign Service and the Jesuit ideal they espoused of “men and women for others.” While I, a spiritual yet unreligious student, was concerned about going to a Catholic school, I was reassured that the University did not push its faith on its students; it was only there if we wanted it. In fact, in my four years there, the closest thing to Mass I attended was the Convocation.

What I didn’t realize was that while Georgetown prided itself on diversity and inclusion of many faiths and beliefs (we had a rabbi and imam on campus as well), it nonetheless imposed its faith on female students by denying them access to birth control in its student health plans. Condoms were also not to be distributed on campus, except in our free speech zone, or “Red Square,” and by the rogue group H*yas for Choice (not officially affiliated with the university, hence the * that came from a lawsuit).

While students (Catholic and non-Catholic alike) at Georgetown have been fighting back against these restrictions for years, the fight has now gone national as the Catholic Bishops have decided that religious-affiliated employers and universities should be able to impose their interpretation of a religion on their employees’ and students’ health insurance.

To follow most of the media’s coverage on this, you’d think that the Obama administration is force-feeding the pill to Catholic Bishops when in fact, not only do actual churches NOT have to cover contraception, but you, as an employee or student at a religious-affiliated institution, don’t have to access this benefit.

Health insurance exists because it’s incredibly expensive to buy anything out of pocket-including contraception. Birth control can cost around $50 a month. About half of women struggle to pay for what can total $600 in a year. Making contraception accessible means that women are more likely to use it. Shocking, I know. And considering the fact that half of pregnancies in the United States are unintended and we have the highest teen birth rate in the developing world, you’d think access to contraception would be something we’d all agree on (especially those who fight to take away access to abortion services AND complain non-stop about low-income women accessing services like welfare, food stamps and WIC).

When I was at Georgetown, I had friends on the student health plan who were sexually active and went without contraception. After working with students at Boston College, I learned of a phrase that their sexual health group spent their time fighting against, “pull and pray” as in “pull out and pray you don’t get her pregnant.”

Because that’s what happens when you take away access to contraception.

Just because you attend school or work at a religious-affiliated institution does not mean you have to comply with the belief system of that institution. On the college-level, many of these schools brag about their religious diversity as a way to recruit new students-especially student athletes. Could you imagine what would happen to Notre Dame’s football team or Georgetown’s basketball team if they insisted that all students be Catholic? Yeah, right.

The thing is that the media is making this a much bigger deal than it actually is. Just because the Catholic Bishops are pissed does not mean every other Catholic or person of faith is pissed. In fact, new polling data show that the majority of Catholics support the Administration’s decision. When will the media highlight that?

Or what about the fact that in December the House held a hearing on this issue and a representative from the Catholic Healthcare Association had to admit that some of its hospitals already cover contraception.

At my alma mater, while students are denied contraception through their health plans, employees are not.

And in 2009, almost 90% of students at Boston College (70% of whom identify as Catholic) voted to make birth control prescriptions available from their student health services.

The point is, to Americans and especially young Americans, this decision is a big deal in the right direction. To listen to the Catholic Bishops as if they represent the views of all Catholics or people of faith is absolutely absurd.

Like I said before, I’m a child of the 80s. I in no way thought that birth control would be my fight and frankly I’m pissed as hell that it is. I don’t want the next generation of women to have to check into whether contraception is available or not when applying to the college or job of their dreams. It’s 20-freaking-12. We should be long over this fight, but please believe that young women will not back down.

Today the House passed an appropriations bill that brought back abstinence-only-until-marriage funding that study after study has shown just doesn't work! (Pissed? Take action and tell us what YOU would spend $5 million on #InsteadOfAbOnly) Check out sex education champion Rep. Barbara Lee speaking about why she voted against this bill.



Please take a minute to call her office and say THANK YOU for being a sex education champion!  Her office number is: 202.225.2661.

And here's another great video from today where she speaks more in depth about the other problematic issues in the bill including a federal funding ban for needle exchange programs and a ban on DC using its OWN money to provide abortion care to low-income women in the District.

So, Congress introduced its appropriations bill late last night to fund the federal government through the end of the 2012 fiscal year. There's good news and bad news.

GOOD: Your calls to Congress made a difference! Even though new abstinence-only-until-marriage funding was reintroduced, they will only receive $5 million. That's a step in the right direction.

BAD: We've seen this before. The Community Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) fund was launched with only $20 million, but its annual funding was scaled up to more than $110 million in just a few years. $5 million is just the beginning.

By now we all know that the majority of Americans oppose an abstinence-only approach to sex education. What makes this worse is that Congress has been raging for months about slashing unnecessary spending and cutting the deficit. $5 million for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs is like taking a match to taxpayers' money and simply lighting it on fire. (Actually, it's even worse than that. Research has shown that these programs have no impact on teen behavior – and they also forbid students from learning about contraception and condoms.)

Our elected officials are fond of saying that "the people" know how to spend their own tax dollars better than politicians in Washington do, and for once we couldn't agree more. So let's turn it over to you.

TELL US: WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH $5 MILLION?

Click here to join the conversation on Facebook.

"Like" us on Facebook, and post comments, photos, or videos on the Amplify Facebook Page explaining how you'd help people with $5 million — rather than fund failed abstinence-only programs. Download a template HERE!

Click here to join the conversation on Twitter.

Let us know by tweeting @AmplifyTweets and using the #InsteadOfAbOnly and #5mil hashtags.

I can't wait to see all of your amazing ideas – and don't worry, we'll make sure to pass them along leaders on Capitol Hill!

In these economic times when all we hear from Congress is budget woes, we have received word that Congress is trying to bring back dedicated funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that Congress' own studies show just don’t work. We need to take action NOW to ensure that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs do not receive dedicated federal funding in the Fiscal Year 2012 budget.

Please take a couple of minutes to CALL the White House and the House and Senate Leadership:

Senate Majority Leader Reid - 202-224-3542

House Minority Leader Pelosi – 202-225-0100

President Obama - 202-456-1111

Script you can use for calls:

“My name is _______ and I’m from ______, __ (city, state). I’m calling to make sure there is no dedicated funding for abstinence-only programs in the final Labor-HHS bill. These ineffective programs have no place in a bill that should focus our limited dollars on evidence-based and cost-effective programs. Please do not provide any dedicated funding to abstinence-only-until-marriage programs in the Fiscal Year 2012 Appropriations negotiations. Thank you.”

Once you've made these calls, please also click here to sign our petition. We don’t have a lot of time on this, so please act now!

We have worked hard to eliminate two-thirds of federal abstinence-only funding. We have to fight hard to keep from backsliding. Over $1.5 billion dollars have already been wasted on these ineffective programs. Young people deserve better.

In solidarity,

Sarah Audelo
Senior Domestic Policy Manager
Advocates for Youth

P.S. Please call now – share this with your friends. We absolutely need President Obama and the Senate and House Leadership to hear from you that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs are a waste of taxpayer dollars and have no place in the appropriations bill.

My favorite parts are bolded!

Sarah
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THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release December 1, 2011

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON WORLD AIDS DAY

George Washington University
Washington, D.C.

10:27 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Sanjay. It is an honor to be with you today and to follow President Kikwete and President Bush. To Bono and Alicia, to the ONE campaign, thank you for bringing us together. Because of your work, all across Africa there are children who are no longer starving, mothers who are no longer dying of treatable diseases, fathers who are again providing for their families. And because of all of you, so many people are now blessed with hope.

We’ve got members of Congress who have done so much for this cause who are here today, and we want to thank them. Let me also thank President Bush for joining us from Tanzania and for his bold leadership on this issue. I believe that history will record the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief as one of his greatest legacies. And that program -- more ambitious than even the leading advocates thought was possible at the time -- has saved thousands and thousands and thousands of lives, and spurred international action, and laid the foundation for a comprehensive global plan that will impact the lives of millions. And we are proud that we have the opportunity to carry that work forward.

Today is a remarkable day. Today, we come together as a global community, across continents, across faiths and cultures, to renew our commitment to ending the AIDS pandemic once and for all.

Now, if you go back and you look at the themes of past World AIDS Days, if you read them one after another, you’ll see the story of how the human race has confronted one of the most devastating pandemics in our history. You’ll see that in those early years -- when we started losing good men and women to a disease that no one truly understood -- it was about ringing the alarm, calling for global action, proving that this deadly disease was not isolated to one area or one group of people.

And that’s part of what makes today so remarkable, because back in those early years, few could have imagined this day -- that we would be looking ahead to “The Beginning of the End,” marking a World AIDS Day that has gone from that early beginning when people were still uncertain to now a theme, “Getting to Zero.” Few could have imagined that we’d be talking about the real possibility of an AIDS-free generation. But that’s what we’re talking about. That’s why we’re here. And we arrived here because of all of you and your unwavering belief that we can -- and we will -- beat this disease.

Because we invested in anti-retroviral treatment, people who would have died, some of whom are here today, are living full and vibrant lives. Because we developed new tools, more and more mothers are giving birth to children free from this disease. And because of a persistent focus on awareness, the global rate of new infections and deaths is declining.

So make no mistake, we are going to win this fight. But the fight is not over -- not by a long shot. The rate of new infections may be going down elsewhere, but it’s not going down here in America. The infection rate here has been holding steady for over a decade. There are communities in this country being devastated, still, by this disease.

When new infections among young black gay men increase by nearly 50 percent in 3 years, we need to do more to show them that their lives matter. When Latinos are dying sooner than other groups, and when black women feel forgotten, even though they account for most of the new cases among women, then we’ve got to do more.

So this fight is not over. Not for the 1.2 million Americans who are living with HIV right now. Not for the Americans who are infected every day. This fight is not over for them, it’s not over for their families, and as a consequence, it can’t be over for anybody in this room -- and it certainly isn’t over for your President.

Since I took office, we’ve had a robust national dialogue on HIV/AIDS. Members of my administration have fanned out across the country to meet people living with HIV; to meet researchers, faith leaders, medical providers and private sector partners. We’ve spoken to over 4,000 people. And out of all those conversations, we drafted a new plan to combat this disease. Last year, we released that plan -- a first-ever national HIV/AIDS strategy.

We went back to basics: prevention, treatment and focusing our efforts where the need is greatest. And we laid out a vision where every American, regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or socioeconomic status, can get access to life-extending care.

More...

What do you think? 

This blog is part of the HERvotes blog carnival.

It seems all anyone can talk about is the new healthcare law (aka “Affordable Care Act”) that passed back in March of 2010. Whether members of Congress and people running for President are promising to repeal the law, or implementation is moving forward, it feels like everywhere I turn, there is discussion about the bill. However, I live in a policy bubble in Washington, DC (I’m a policy nerd-I admit it), and from what I hear talking to “real” people, there is still a lot of confusion. So here, in a short blog post, are a few (not all) things I think are important for young people, and young women in particular, to know about.

1. Young people can stay on their parent’s health insurance until their 26th birthday.
When the healthcare bill passed, young people were the largest group of the uninsured. In these economic times, not only has it been difficult for people (especially young people) to find jobs, but jobs that include health insurance. Being able to stay on your parent’s health insurance just makes sense. New data has shown that nearly one million young people have gained health insurance thanks to this provision.
This is in effect now.

2. Minors can’t be denied insurance coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
Because of the new healthcare bill, minors cannot be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. This is great news for young people who have everything from asthma to HIV.
This is in effect now.

3. No co-pays for birth control.
In the year 2011, you’d think access to birth control wouldn’t be a big deal…but it is. Not all health plans cover contraception and even if they do, sometimes co-pays are too high to make contraception accessible. Well, this is about to change. Starting next August, plans will be required to not only cover contraception (certain religious employers are exempted from this), but cover contraception with no co-pay.
Let’s face it. Birth control can be expensive. If women, including young women, want to make the responsible decision to use contraception to prevent and unintended pregnancy, they should be able to access the services they need to do so.

These are just a few gains brought to us by the new healthcare law that have been implemented or will go into effect soon, but there is more to come...

1. No one will be denied coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
Whether it’s diabetes, cancer, pregnancy or domestic violence (I’m not even lying. Women have been denied coverage because they are survivors of domestic violence or are pregnant), starting in 2014, no one will be denied access to insurance coverage because of any pre-existing condition.

2. Medicaid expanded!
In order to make sure more people have access to healthcare, in 2014, Medicaid will be expanded to include all Americans who make less than 133% of the poverty level (about $14,000 for individuals and $29,000 for a family of four). This is a HUGE deal for young people and young families who previously have had a hard time accessing healthcare. I know this is especially important for women (like some of my friends) who have become pregnant, had access to Medicaid during their pregnancy, and then were kicked off weeks after delivering their baby.

3. Women can't be charged more...for being women.
Believe it or not, there are still cases where men and women pay different prices for the same health insurance...and women are paying MORE (Equality, what?). Becuase of the new healthcare law, insurance companies cannot charge higher rates based on gender. While this also doesn’t come into effect until 2014, it’s a huge gain that honestly, should have happened years ago.

Like I mentioned before, there is a lot to the new healthcare law, but these are just a few of the good things we’ve gained because of it. For those who oppose the entire law, it’s probably a good idea to ask them where they stand on these issues, and if they really want them all to go away.

As more of the law is implemented, we’ll be sure to keep you updated!

To learn more about the new healthcare law and additional benefits for women, check out the HERvotes blog carnival.

**Update: After posting this blog, Advocates for Youth was invited to join the HERvotes. We will keep folks updated on this new campaign, including the role of young women in this area.**

Yesterday, the Feminist Majority Foundation announced a new initiative spearheaded by 20 women’s organizations entitled HERvotes with the goal to “mobilize women voters in 2012 around preserving women’s Health and Economic Rights (HER rights).”

Citing 10 policy areas they consider most “at risk,” HERvotes is trying to raise awareness among women across the country of the specific issue areas they should keep in mind during the next election cycle.

This work and this campaign is much-needed. While women’s issues have been under attack for years, the particular vigor of members of various anti-choice and so-called “family values” organizations has been overwhelming. It is far past time for groups to join together to fight back against these efforts by encouraging women to bring the issues they care about to the ballot box.

But.

Yet again, women’s organizations missed the opportunity to involve young women and the organizations who work with them in the leadership and creation of a new campaign. We were not invited to the table in our own house.

Just take a look at the 10 issue areas of concern. While young women benefit from all areas outlined, they in particular are at the core of many advances listed. For example:
     • Title IX directly impacts what programs (sports, STEM, etc.) are available to young women while they are in school.
     • Over 50% of patients at Title X family planning clinics are young women between the ages of 15 and 24.
     • Young people have been at the center of many voting law battles on the state level, especially as it relates to college students voting where they go to school.
     • The Affordable Care Act allows young people to stay on their parent’s health insurance until their 26th birthday, will also expand Medicaid coverage in 2014 to allow more low-income young people to qualify for benefits, has resulted in no-copay birth control and STD counseling and screening (when 1 in 4 teen girls has a STD and the US has the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the developed world) and more.

To leave out (or forget about) young women and the organizations that advocate with them is short-sighted, especially as we go into a presidential election year when the last one showed young people voting more than the elderly for the first. time. ever.

Even organizations who analyze voter engagement are paying attention to us. According to a recent blog from the Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund, the Rising American Electorate (RAE) which includes unmarried women, people of color and younger voters “compromise a rapidly growing majority of the eligible voting population in this country.” But work needs to be done to engage them. They continue with “one in five voters in the RAE say they are extremely interested in elections and debates in Washington, compared to nearly one-third of non-RAE voters. The lack of engagement is even more pronounced among young voters and points to the need to provide a compelling narrative to engage these crucial voters.”

As my boss, Executive Director of Advocates for Youth, James Wagoner, likes to say, when it comes to sexual health issues, Millennials are the generation we’ve been waiting for. We are down on sex ed, family planning, and gender equality more than any other generation seen before. According to a recent study, we are just as pro-choice as our parent’s generation, despite the fact that so little work as been done to engage young people on abortion rights and access issues by the larger pro-choice movement (think of the progress that can be made if the movement invests in us!).

Involving young women and the organizations who work with them should be seen as an opportunity to share wisdom and start investing in the next generation of women leaders who sit at many other tables.

So who exactly am I talking about? I would start with progressive youth organizations that work on women’s issues. There are three in particular that come to mind. First, my own organization, Advocates for Youth, which focuses on the sexual health and rights of all young people. Second, Choice USA, a national organization that works with young people on advancing reproductive justice issues. Third, Campus Progress, the youth arm of the Center for American Progress, that advocates with college students on campuses across the country.

Want to know why else it’s important to involve these youth groups? They’re at the youth vote table. For some reason the progressive movement likes to segment themselves off into issues areas. People of color here. Women here. LGBT there. Environmentalists there. Immigration here…I love working in the youth movement because young people are at all these tables (and to be honest, are many of the ones knocking doors…). Involve us on women’s issues so we can make sure they are also part of the youth vote conversation.

Shocking, I know.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m really excited for this campaign. I look forward to young women’s organizations being invited to participate. I just hope that we as a larger movement stop having these oversights and invite us in at the beginning. There is far too much work to do.

To quote my own mother, “I’m TIRED. We can’t do it by ourselves anymore.”

So don’t. We’re here and ready.

This is my second year participating in the blog carnival for the Latina Week of Action for Reproductive Justice. When I first heard the theme, ““What’s the real problem” when it comes to the scapegoating of immigrant women?” from the fabulous Miriam Zoila Perez, my first reaction was, well, blunt and not exactly printable. It was about how racism is alive and well in America — and it was a choice phrase aimed at those who exploit racism in order to marginalize communities and divide progressives.

On the one hand, I understand that there will always be racism in America. Immigrant women are scapegoated precisely because they are often women of color — poor, young - and often living at the margins in society.

So yes, racism is a problem — but it isn’t the entire problem.

The real problem, however, is that the rest of the progressive community allows immigrant women to remain an easy target of this ongoing, cultural bullying. Immigrant women remain vulnerable not only because of social, economic, and institutional barriers — but because the effects of racism are not met with a unified response from the larger progressive community. They are scapegoated simply because we as a movement don't call out racism every time we encounter it in all its forms. We don’t understand that attacks on immigrant women are, in fact, attacks on us all.

The people who go after immigrant women for political gain are the same people who want to deny all women access to reproductive health care, including abortion. They are the same people who demonize the LGBT community and want to deny them basic human rights. They are the same people who attack the entire Muslim community for the work of an extreme minority. They are the same people who want to deny services to the poor. They are the same people that want to cut access to Pell grants, Head Start and other education programs. They are the same people who want to make it hard for people (especially the poor and the young) to vote by ending same day registration and/or reinstating voter ID barriers.

We cannot expect immigrant rights and Latinos organizations to be the only national groups defending immigrant women and fighting back. With every attack that goes unanswered, the larger progressive movement loses. We can’t forget that immigrant women are also part of the LGBT community, members of religious minorities, poor, young and yes, women who want to access reproductive health care services including abortion.

Luckily, the future holds some hope. Through efforts by those like the DREAMers, a new generation of young people that really understand how issues intersect is growing. At Advocates for Youth, a national youth sexual health and rights organization, we were pushed by our own young people to rally for the passage of the DREAM Act. They have been fighting alongside us for sex ed, gay rights, and contraceptive access on the state and national level and, oh yeah, some happened to be undocumented. While it felt like a big deal amongst other national groups to step in immigration fights not directly through a sexual health angle, our youth activists (both citizens and undocumented) showed us that we were doing the right and just thing. How could we not have their backs when they’ve had (and will continue to have) ours for years?

Until the larger progressive movement really owns up to our own internalized racism and stands up to the continuing racist, homophobic and classist attacks that we all face in America, we will to continue to lose and wonder why. Until we really unite on behalf of immigrant women and youth, those who would exploit our differences to divide us will continue to have the upper hand.

For more info on the Latina Week of Action for Reproductive Justice, click here.

Yesterday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan released a “Dear Colleague” letter in support of Gay Straight Alliances (and similar organizations), affirming the rights of young people to form these groups at their schools as well as the important role GSAs play in helping to provide a safe space for GLBTQ young people.

In 1984, Congress passed and then-President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Equal Access Act. Interestingly enough, the faith lobby pushed for this bill’s passage as they wanted to ensure space for students to have Bible study groups. Secretary Duncan’s letter states, “Rooted in principles of equal treatment and freedom of expression, the Act protects student-initiated groups of all types.” This basically means that if one non-academic extra-curricular activity exists on a public high school campus, then GSAs have to be permitted as well. Unfortunately, some schools have contemplated banning all extra-curricular clubs so they won’t have to follow the law, but overall this is a huge and much-needed step by the Department of Education.

The need for GSAs is immense. Numerous studies have shown our GLBTQ young people are some of the most vulnerable in society. Data collected by the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network shows that nearly 9 out of 10 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth have not only experienced harassment in school in the last year, but two-thirds have felt unsafe because of their sexual orientation. Because of safety concerns, almost a third of LGBT students skipped at least one day of school in the past month.

Gay Straight Alliances and similar organizations help to create safer spaces for students on campus. As GLSEN also points out, “Having a Gay-Straight Alliance in school was related to more positive experiences for LGBT students, including: hearing fewer homophobic remarks, less victimization because of sexual orientation and gender expression, less absenteeism because of safety concerns and a greater sense of belonging to the school community.”

As a former educator with Teach for America in the Rio Grande Valley, TX, I can tell you it doesn’t matter if you are the best teacher in the planet; if your students feel unsafe in your classroom, then what you’re teaching goes in one ear and out the other. In speaking with students from across the country, they’ve mentioned how important it is to have people on campus that have their backs-whether it’s teachers, administrators, friends or even custodians and cafeteria workers. Is it really too much to ask that they feel safe?

As noted by Secretary Duncan, “High levels of harassment and bullying correlate with poorer educational outcomes, lower future aspirations, frequent school absenteeism, and lower grade-point averages. Recent tragedies involving LGBT students and students perceived to be LGBT only underscore the need for safer schools.”

We cannot commit to closing the achievement gap unless we also commit to addressing real social issues that affect our young people everyday. GSAs are a huge leap towards doing so.

To read Secretary Duncan’s letter in its entirety, click here.

If you’re interested in starting a GSA on your campus, check out these tips from our friends at the GSA Network.