By Sarah Stortz
A diverse group of women huddled around each other in the Women’s Resource & Action Center on Wednesday as UI sophomores Adelaide Zwick and Gina Mostafa introduced the Student Advocates for Planned Parenthood as one the newest clubs on campus.
The main objective of the organization is to advocate for reproductive rights, women’s rights, and intersectional activism. The group also hopes to provide a safe space that allows individuals to discuss the issues.
The group was started by Mostafa and Zwick, who met as fellows for Planned Parenthood during the 2016 presidential election.
“We just kind of knew as soon as this election happened, we would need to be a force of nature on campus as Planned Parenthood,” Zwick said. “We haven’t officially established Planned Parenthood affiliated student organizations around campus, and we really wanted to create an organization that had a focus on intersectional feminism, along with reproductive rights and educating people.”
Zwick said she believes it is necessary to start this group because Planned Parenthood is crucial for many individuals.
“Planned Parenthood really does save lives. It’s an amazing organization that provides basic women’s health care,” she said “A lot of people our age use Planned Parenthood. You might be in a situation where you need some of these resources, but you can’t let your parents know. We want to make it known that this is a resource that’s available to people, and we want to make sure that needs to be defended, because we are under attack.”
In their first meeting, new members kicked off the group by sharing their backgrounds along with their own reasons that Planned Parenthood was so important to them.
Some of the members offered insights on what the club could do to advance their goals.
One of the members was UI senior Samone Coleman, who works to improve sexual-assault policies on campus.
“My rights, not only as a woman but a black woman, feel really threatened since Donald Trump took office,” Coleman said. “We need to let our representatives know what we care about. They’re supposed to represent us, and I think that they’re only representing themselves, so we need to make our voices known.”
UI senior Kendall Carson was also excited about the meeting.
“[The club] seems very inclusive, with anybody who wants can come,” Carson said. “It has an opportunity for change in our community and in our state.”
The club already has a set of goals they wish to accomplish later this year.
Their main one is to create a clinic defense program for the Planned Parenthood clinic in Iowa City. This could potentially become the first Planned Parenthood defense clinic in the state of Iowa.
Another aspiration the club hopes to accomplish is alter the Iowa City sex curriculum.
“We hope to institute a queer-friendly and comprehensive sex-ed curriculum for the Iowa City schools,” she said. “It’s not particularly standardized right now, and we want to make sure that everyone’s needs are being met.”
At the conclusion of the meeting, members got the chance to write notes to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) encouraging them to protect Planned Parenthood in Iowa.
Zwick highly encouraged others to come to any of their future meetings as well.
“Anyone who has any interest in any social justice issue should join us,” Zwick said. “The diversity of our campus is represented in this organization. We have many voices within society coming together and creating actual change.”
