Despite being tied up in a number of the highly divisive political issues, San Diego State’s Planned Parenthood Generation Action chapter will spend this semester collaborating with organizations from all ends of the political spectrum.
The issue at hand is voting, something PPGA wants all eligible citizens to take part in.
PPGA is a non-partisan activism group that is planning to work with both the SDSU College Democrats and the San Diego State College Republicans to register as many people to vote as possible, Co-Political Affairs Officer and international business junior Patricia Hyde said.
“We just want people to get registered to vote and to vote about the things they care about, because it really matters to us that people care about democracy,” Hyde said.
Aside from their recent push to get people to the polls, the organization’s platform primarily focuses on reproductive and social justice.
The deeper roots of the club stem from reproductive justice principles created in the 1990s by SisterSong, an organization focused on improving the reproductive rights of those living in marginalized communities, according to Spanish and linguistics senior and PPGA vice president of finance Sophia Cole.
The three-pronged holistic framework is “having the right to parent, having the right not to parent (and) having the right to parent your child safely,” Cole said.
While the organization identifies as nonpartisan, they often endorse political candidates on the basis of their support for both reproductive and social justice issues. Two members of the executive board, Delanie McGinn and Sophia Cole, recently spoke at a rally aimed at raising awareness around the prospective appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the supreme court and the dangers they believe he poses to reproductive justice.
“That appointment is pretty bad news for reproductive rights and justice because Kavanaugh has sided with employers who want to refuse birth control access to their employers on company healthcare,” Cole said.
PPGA actively works to help their members understand the relevant current events and how certain political leaders can affect reproductive and social justice. During their meetings, junior public health major and PPGA President Talia Kieu said they regularly give presentations on the news regarding Kavanaugh’s appointment from what they consider to be reliable sources.
“We inform our general body members as best we can,” Kieu said. “We know that there’s a lot of media going on and it’s really hard to sift through those articles. It’s really easy to read a headline, get fatigued and brush it under the rug. But, since this appointment is really important to us, we like to inform our general body members in person.”
In addition to political activism, PPGA focuses a lot on promoting good sexual health and comprehensive sex education.
“People (in college) are at a really weird age … yes, they’re adults, but they’re all coming from really different backgrounds so people might not have had comprehensive sex education,” Kieu said.
During tabling, cole said PPGA members will have voter registration materials, lubricant, dental dams and condoms available for students at no cost as well as educational literature about sexual health.
PPGA meetings are held every other Wednesday, including Wednesday, Sept. 19, at 11 a.m. in the Pride Suite of the Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union.
