Summer in Review

Juliana Swaren

During the past several weeks, my fellow Philadelphia interns and I have been busy advocating for the PA Agenda for Women's Health in Philadelphia, Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware counties. While doing voter registration and community education tabling at Philadelphia events such as Clark Park Music & Arts Festival and the Lancaster Avenue Jazz & Arts Festival, we have focused primarily on door-to-door canvassing and weekly phone-banking in the suburban areas. In tandem with our Agenda work, we have also been volunteering at the John Kane for State Senate Campaign out of Delaware County. John, a business manager for the Plumber's Union in Philadelphia, is a strong Planned Parenthood supporter & women's health advocate, and has been open to the support and direction of Planned Parenthood. As we move into the August, our focus continues to shift more and more to voter registration and pro-women's health campaign work, in addition to continuing to educate individuals about the Agenda for Women's Health.

Over the past 7 weeks, I have come to appreciate the perseverance required in grassroots organizing, as well as the uphill battle for women's health that we still face today. In addition to correcting the myths surrounding Planned Parenthood's funding and work, our fight is continually impounded by outcomes such as the "Hobby Lobby Case" ruling, and election of anti-choice & anti-women's health officials. Nonetheless, I have had the honor of working alongside persistent and dedicated women and men this summer, because of whom I believe we can win this fight.

Campaign Intern Experience

By: Abby Yochum

 “Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” That’s what I imagine clinic protesters and GOP politicians think that Planned Parenthood promotes and our goals as political action interns mean to them.  It can be extremely baffling and outright infuriating to encounter anti-choice people and laws that go against seemingly basic human rights and common sense measures to ensure that families and women have access to family planning, equal pay, protection from violence, health insurance, affordable housing and government assistance, and safe working conditions, among a myriad of others. 

         At action camp, we shared our stories of why we came to Planned Parenthood as political action interns. Mine is pretty simple, human rights are merely a privilege to the elite few even in our supposedly modern and progressive American society and that infuriates me.  So I came to Planned Parenthood to join the fight for women’s reproductive health and human rights for all.

            As many of us have already described, grassroots organizing is a lot of phone calls and door-to-door and event canvasing. At first and still occasionally, it can be frightening to call or go up to a total stranger and ask them to support your children killing, capitalism destroying, witchcraft practicing, lesbian social movement organization. Sometimes they react poorly, but sometimes you reach someone or they thank you for your work and you realize you really are making a difference. Or you hope at least.

In light of the recent attacks on women’s health, or should I really say, age-old cycle, one of the most important jobs of the grassroots organizer is to mobilize voters into electing new legislators that will make a real difference for social change or to press their current politician to vote for a law that will help our cause. Mobilizing voters is one of the most difficult political tasks in America, however the Washington Post has found that what we as political interns are doing actually works.  In a recent article,

            “analysis shows that citizens who haven’t voted much in the past can be inspired by either door-to-door visits or live phone calls.  Tellingly, our research shows that such contacts, especially if repeated, can produce habitual voters…

            Personal contacting works to persuade people to vote regularly     even though the interactions do not increase voters’ resources    and have little or no impact on their underlying attitudes about public issues. It is the social interaction itself that seems to matter.”

            So as our internship draws near to its close, I hope that we all leave with a sense of accomplishment after these ten weeks of power-building and supporter identification because reaching out to voters is the best way we can make a change in the political landscape that so often crushes women’s rights. I also hope that we remember that our stories matter and are important to touch and mobilize our supporters. So go out there and share your story and don’t be afraid of the naysayers and anti-choice advocates.