Meet Planned Parenthood Generation Action, a thriving community of inclusivity and acceptance.
Note: Quotes have been edited for clarity.
Finding organizations that you click with in college can be difficult. It’s tough to put yourself out there and school complicates things by adding stress and taking away large portions of your free time. When I first got to college, I felt awkward and out of place, but joining Planned Parenthood Generation Action helped.
Planned Parenthood Generation Action is a nationwide network of activists who organize on college campuses and within local communities to educate people about sexual health, raise awareness for reproductive rights, and mobilize young people to advocate for reproductive justice. At the University of Florida, Generation Action is led by a group of strong, articulate, and passionate activists who aim to create a lasting impact on the University of Florida and Gainesville..
On campus, Generation Action aspires to educate students about sexual health, among other things. “Our primary goal is to educate and bring people together on campus. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn’t receive proper sex education, or any kind of education in some of the topics that we talk about… so I would say the main thing is to provide education,” said Rachel Wolfrey, President of Planned Parenthood Generation Action’s University of Florida chapter. “We want to provide material resources and bring like-minded students together to support Planned Parenthood’s mission on campus.” Generation Action accomplishes this in three ways: community engagement, education, and advocacy. “We’re trying to re-educate ourselves and other people,” said Ashley Sanguino, Outreach Director. “We advocate for issues where they intersect with health care and reproductive justice in general.”
Generation Action’s advocacy is impressive, to say the least. An important goal for them is to be a resource for students, educationally and materially. “A lot of students don’t have access to contraceptives or to period products, so we do donation drives so we can give out free menstrual products to folks on campus; we pass out internal condoms, external condoms, dental dams, pregnancy testers, because a lot of those things are super expensive.” Wolfrey said.
Generation Action also worked with M. Spata, Marketing Director for the Change Party, and Senator Jonathan Stephens to write a bill that would allocate funds to place menstrual products in the dorm bathrooms of the Yulee Area. “Unfortunately, the Budget and Appropriations Committee failed the bill because they said that there is not enough money in the Student Government Senate Streamlined Projects budget, which is the money that the Student Government has to fund projects like this.” Sanguino said. Now, Generation Action must try to pass the bill through the executive ticket of the Student Government.
“A lot of students will use alternatives that include using tampons and pads for longer than they should, which can be dangerous for one’s health,” Sanguino said. “It’s disappointing to see people who have the power and resources at their disposal to help students choose to send us through other avenues.” Students who wish to support Generation Action in getting this bill passed should email the Student Government’s executive ticket and go to their office hours. “I would recommend putting the spotlight on these people…email them, go to their office hours, be annoying,” Sanguino said. “We have the capacity to advocate when these avenues fail us.”
In addition, students can donate menstrual products directly to Generation Action. Generation Action collects menstrual products when they table around campus (their tabling schedule is posted on Instagram, @ppgenactionuf).
Off campus, Generation Action works with Planned Parenthood to advocate for reproductive justice in the greater Gainesville community. Generation Action protests community pregnancy centers, or CPCs, which are anti-abortion clinics that pose as health care centers. CPCs spread misinformation about abortions by claiming that abortions cause infertility and often don’t have licensed medical professionals on staff. Three CPCs exist in Gainesville: Sira, A Woman’s Answer, and Community Pregnancy Clinic. Generation Action partners with Planned Parenthood to educate people about the existence of these clinics, hoping to direct people to the correct institutions.
Education is a huge theme in Generation Action’s work. In addition to tabling, Generation Action does “condom crawls” every month, where they pass out contraceptives in Midtown, near clubs, to educate people about safe sex practices. Education is a core element in reproductive justice.
“Reproductive justice looks like so many things,” Sanguino said. “It’s a large, intersecting issue. Everyone should be able to have access to menstrual products, to healthcare, to contraceptives. They should have these rights at their disposal… Marginalized communities, particularly people of color and people in low-income households, are impacted the most. They all deserve to have resources to make informed healthcare decisions and access this healthcare as well.”
Amelia Packham, Publicity Chair, said, “The history of reproductive justice, which is that 20 black women found the existing reproductive justice framework to be intellectual rather than material, is also important. Reproductive justice is about maintaining personal bodily autonomy; it’s about whether to have children and how to raise children safely and sustainably.” None of these goals can be accomplished without education; education helps to build community between people, which is what Generation Action hopes to create.
Of the community that Generation Action has built and continues to grow, Packham said, “Organizing can be difficult and depressing in these times… this is the long-lasting impact that we want to see to make advocacy sustainable. We want to have a very educated community, because anti-abortion efforts thrive when people are uninformed and unprepared. I’d like to emphasize that with the overturning of Roe we’ve seen so much more engagement. The overturning of Roe was just the beginning of our organization. Power lies in people.” Whether you’re afraid of the legislation targeting abortion being passed around the country or looking to get more information about sexual health and reproductive justice, Planned Parenthood Generation Action is a fantastic club and community to join.