Wes Students Rally to Support Planned Parenthood — With Creativity

Members of Wesleyan Uncut, Wesleyan University’s new student group which promotes sexual dialogue on campus, released a video March 10 in support of Planned Parenthood's federal funding.  

The video has since received more than 320,000 views on YouTube and brought the creators, Jacob Eichengreen and Su Park, all the way to Washington, D.C., for the Planned Parenthood Day of Action, where they were presented with the 2011 Walk the Talk Award. 

Eichengreen states that this is “one of five awards they give out every year — last year, it went to UN Foundation president Tim Wirth.”

“It all happened one Saturday afternoon,” explains Eichengreen, where he and 13 other students gathered for dinner after the screening of "9500 Liberty," Annabel Park and Eric Byler's documentary on illegal aliens in the United States. 

The students then met for a Q&A discussion regarding effective social activism. The issue of Planned Parenthood being defunded was raised and, with the motivation evoked from the previous film, the students began to seriously consider their roles as activists.

Eichengreen recalls the question, “How can we affect change?,” helped fan to flames the motivation and passion to use the internet for social activism.

During mid-terms week, the students crammed in time to meet and create the clips of college students, male and female, holding confessional posters to express the public's need for the birth control, family planning, and overall sex education services provided by Planned Parenthood. 

The creation of their first film has been a pivotal experience for the former adhoc group. “After the video,” Park states, “the group came together.”

Uncut members are amazed and excited about the worldwide response they have received. “It is way beyond anything we ever imagined ...We are all young — we still think we can change the world just by ourselves so we want to capitalize on that,” says Eichengreen.

“This serves as recognition for what a small group of people can do.” Eichengreen enthusiastically adds that Uncut operates “on behalf of our generation of activists ... this is just the beginning.”

Uncut plans to create “a series of video clips in the same spirit,” explains Park, and the issue of taxes is the next item up for discussion. 

This video is one of the many voices which passionately spoke out over the Feb. 18 House of Representatives vote to yank all federal funding from Planned Parenthood under the Pence Amendment.

Planned Parenthood has posted a rebuttal in its open letter to Congress and the Senate with the final statement, “to every member of Congress, know that we stand together today against this outrageous assault, and together we will not lose.” The deeper questions are: exactly what services are currently being funded, and who would be affected by this cut? 

The GOP's push for this cut seems to stem from the intolerance of abortion funding. The Hyde Amendment, however, already avoids the issue of federal funding of abortion, outlawing the funding completely, with the exception of a pregnancy due to rape, incest or if there are life-threatening complications for the mother.

Further concerns are regarding the recent Planned Parenthood scandal and potential illegal practices. This raises an issue of corporate corruption, completely separate from  passing a clear budget, and it would ideally be assumed that, should such corruption become evident, then necessary changes would be immediately be made.

The crux of the outrage lays in the removal of sex education and health care for the low income crowd. Uncut points out, “Planned Parenthood costs $75 million. Tax breaks for oil companies cost $2.5 billion.”

Planned Parenthood proclaims that they alone can assist the "3 million women, men and teens who are at risk of losing access to basic care." Yet, on the flip side,  according to the pro-life organization, Citizenlink, there are actually around 8,000 alternative healthcare clinics which yearly provide “comprehensive health care to 24 million low-income patients... outnumbering Planned Parenthood clinics 10 to 1.”

In the end, the issue involves much more than mere finances, and the final decision will involve a governmental workout; a wriggling around all the evoked emotional sticky tape.

After the March 17 Senate meeting, New York Sen. Charles Schumer reminded the public that, “this is not a debate on abortion or net neutrality or clean air. It’s a debate about the budget."

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