Choice Out Loud GW is a new initiative at GW this semester. Choice Out Loud is an issue campaign started by NARAL Pro-Choice America to engage the millennial generation in the pro-choice movement. Every decision has a story, and the goal of the campaign is to share these stories, growing and uniting the community of pro-choice young adults.
The Choice Out Loud – On Campus campaign, designed to target college students and engage in open conversations about choice, is currently active on more than 30 college campuses across the country. As a campus representative, I can decide how to implement the mission of Choice Out Loud at GW.
Compared to some of the other campuses where Choice Out Loud is starting up, GW is fairly liberal and accepting of the cause. In fact, GW has a large population of pro-choice individuals, and there are several student organizations on campus that promote choice. However, despite these various organizations, there is a lack of organization and coalition between the pro-choice students and groups across campus. With Choice Out Loud GW, we hope to unite these students, as well as to encourage them to be more outspoken about their pro-choice-ness.
We have several events planned for this semester that we hope will engage GW students and get them to think about their own personal views on choice. We’re in the baby stages of what will hopefully become something huge at GW, relying on social media to build support. In just one week, we got over 100 “likes” on our Facebook page, and over 70 followers on Twitter.
We’re using these platforms to foster open, public conversations about choice. We’ve been asking our followers to tweet at us telling us why they are pro-choice, and retweeting their responses for our followers. We’ve been compiling the responses we get through social media to use in our first event – a post-it campaign that kicked off earlier this week.
We’ve written GW students’ reasons for being pro-choice on dozens of post-it notes, and put them all over the walls of Gelman Library. We hope that when students see an anonymous reason for being pro-choice, they’ll be inspired to think about their own beliefs.
Our second event, a screening of the HBO documentary 12th & Delaware, will be taking place on Thursday, April 4th at 6:30 in the Marvin Center amphitheater. 12th and Delaware tells the story of an abortion clinic in Florida, and the crisis pregnancy center across the street.
Ideally, Choice Out Loud GW will be something that continues at GW. For now though, the most important thing we can do is grow a base of support and publicize reasons why members of our community are pro-choice. We hope to create a platform to share individuals’ stories and ultimately unite and grow the pro-choice community at GW.
Email Paris Bienert at bienertp@gwmail.gwu.edu if you’d like to get involved with Choice Out Loud GW!
– Paris Bienert
