Make Trouble by Cecile Richards

Author:Cecile Richards
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone

9. Nothing is more motivating than seeing generational progress through your kids’ eyes

Having a mom who worked for Planned Parenthood came in handy for my kids more than once. At the very least, by the time they were in high school, our apartment was where one could always find condoms.

It was also Planned Parenthood that provided the twins their first organizing opportunities. In 2011, when Congress turned on us and the efforts to shut down Planned Parenthood really took off in Washington (with a little help from Congressman Mike Pence, who will always have a special place in my heart), both Hannah and Daniel were in college.

Hannah called me, agitated. “Everyone at school is really upset about this defunding of Planned Parenthood, but I don’t really know what to do. We just have to do something.”

“Students all over the country are getting involved right now. How about you organize something on campus?” I suggested.

We hung up, and the next week I got a notice that the students at Wesleyan were holding a rally of support for Planned Parenthood. I knew right away: that was Hannah. She’d just gotten it together—created a Facebook event, hung posters around campus, told everyone she knew, and remembered to call some reporters a day or two before the event. Hundreds of people packed into a hall on campus, plus overflow rooms. Senator Richard Blumenthal and the school president, Michael Roth, even showed up to speak. After the rally a bunch of Wesleyan students made an amazing video in support of Planned Parenthood, titled I Have Sex—you better believe it went viral.

Daniel knew what was happening from the news, but that was about all I was sure of. One Saturday I was racing downtown in New York to speak at a Planned Parenthood rally when I got a text. “Hey Mom, I’m in a car with some kids from Allegheny. We’re driving to Ohio to a rally for Planned Parenthood. I love you.” It was from Daniel.

My first reaction was totally emotional: here was my happy-go-lucky son, getting in a car to spend his weekend fighting for Planned Parenthood. But my second thought was Wow, if Daniel is driving to Ohio, then this is a movement, and we are going to win. (Which we did, thanks in no small part to young people who organized on campuses across the country.) Today Daniel is a chemist, but also a lifelong political activist, and proud of it.

Hannah decided to become a full-time organizer, working on environmental justice and commonsense gun reform, among other causes. If anyone is taking up the family business, it’s her. She’s experienced the pains of coalition building just as Kirk and I did when we were trying to organize New Orleans back in the day. How do you get groups to see their shared interest on some issue when they may have nothing else in common? Every now and then I get a call from her ahead of some big community hearing or after an organizing mishap, and my heart skips a beat.

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