Welcome to Empowered Youth, Powerful Futures, the final post in the Care Not Control learning series. In this edition, we look at how conservative lawmakers use fear against young people’s families, neighbors, and peers to separate young folks from the supportive people around them. When young people lose community, they lose resources and agency. And they’re vulnerable to government control over their bodies and healthcare decisions.
Let’s explore how fear and surveillance culture impact privacy for ourselves and young people.
Youth Demand a Liberated World
Young folks are actively building a new, more liberated world for all of us and future generations.
Another year has passed without Roe. But we find hope in the amazing organizing and creativity from young people who are taking control over their own bodies. Young people are challenging traditional ideas about gender and power. They are taking action by joining city council and school board meetings, protesting at state capitals and elected officials’ offices, and disrupting heteropatriarchal narratives.
We must weave resistance with care and compassion to create a world that embraces the affirmation, dignity, and support of young people.”
National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF)
Read the Care Not Control Zine!
Monsters in our Midst is about the tactics used to criminalize youth. Gain knowledge & build power for youth bodily autonomy. Read and share the Care Not Control zine, Monsters in Our Midst!
Fear by Design
Many of the barriers to abortion and gender-affirming care that young people face today come in the form of criminalizing supportive adults.
As we learned earlier in the Care Not Control series, young folks often rely on others to access healthcare. Anti-abortion extremists target parents, other family members, family friends, teachers, and doctors for their unapologetic care for young people. Year after year, laws requiring parental consent and notification have been used to take control from young people seeking abortions and give it to parents or judges. Some states want to criminalize further. They want young people to have even less consent and power over their own bodies.
Tennessee and Idaho have proposed and passed legislation meant to criminalize people who help young folks access abortions without “parental permission” in their states. Abortion is illegal in Tennessee and Idaho. These bills sensationalize and invoke outrage by using “anti-trafficking” language to equate seeking abortion care with human trafficking.
Parents have faced legal charges for securing abortions for their children. Child Protective Services (CPS) is used to threaten family separation when parents support their children in getting abortions. Doctors have been subpoenaed for providing medication abortions to youth, especially across state lines. Funds who support abortion seekers, like Mountain Access Brigade and Abortion Care Tennessee, have had to deal with the frightening impact of these laws on young people and the adults who support them.
Defense for Community Care
Young people are tired of their healthcare choices being controlled. They are tired of the policing of who can be involved in their support. Healthcare providers and teachers act as surveillance agents who could report on youth at any time. Conversations with primos, aunties, and uncles may no longer feel private or safe. If criminality keeps trusted adults from being abortion helpers, some pregnant young people are left with no ecosystem of support.
Abortion funds are steadfast in supporting the privacy and agency of medical decisions. They know that keeping one’s health information private is a delicate lifeline for many young folks. Especially when a parent or partner doesn’t support their bodily autonomy. This privacy can be the difference between having money and a place to live and emotional and physical harm. Black, Indigenous, and other young people of color, as well as young folks in foster care, are hurt even more through further surveillance. Abortion funds will keep fighting for privacy in young people’s decisions around bodily autonomy.
Young people and Reproductive Justice supporters are fighting to ensure that agency and power over our bodies remain in our own hands. Government should not hold the right to criminalize our bodily autonomy.
- Trans youth and affirming doctors publicly revealed a panel of anti-trans extremists misrepresenting their hateful views as professional opinion at a pediatric professionals conference.
- Trans and gender expansive people challenged transphobic bathroom policies through a public bathroom sit-in on Capitol Hill.
- Providers and parents blocked the entrance to the Health and Human Services Department headquarters to demand that the government stop blocking healthcare for trans and gender expansive youth.
Help Youth Build a Better Future
Youth are powerful. They deserve presence and trust. The Care Not Control learning series is ending, but abortion funds will keep fighting for young people’s privacy and bodily autonomy. Join us and commit to building intergenerational support for young folks in our communities and beyond.
So much more is possible when we support young people.
Trust Youth, Support Youth: Young people deserve to be trusted and should be seen as partners in their healthcare decisions. They deserve to feel like they belong and that their identities are respected and valued.
Affirm Young People’s Journeys: Lift up and learn from youth-led work, like Queerspace Collective, Tigerrs, and Advocates for Youth. Donate, volunteer, and connect with organizations that support trans youth, such as Encircle, Glisten, Advocates for Youth, the Trevor Project, and Forward Together.
Create New Ecosystems Together: Work with young people to co-create the world they deserve, beyond narrow structures of traditional gender roles and nuclear families. A future that accepts and embraces all gender identities, family-making, and care-giving, and builds informed and well-resourced communities.
Young Folks—Build Community Trust: Find an adult, a friend, a partner’s parent, or a teacher you can turn to for support. Learn about peer-led programs and look for opportunities on youth advisory boards. Create change in your community. Get involved with an abortion fund near you.
Adult Supporters—Destroy Controlling Attitudes: Trust young people’s ability to make decisions. Work to make sure youth are safe, welcome, and celebrated for who they are. Let’s support our young neighbors, friends, and family as the leaders they are. Encourage their growth and creativity.
Explore all the Care Not Control resources! Keep fighting for youth autonomy with us.