The right to protest is sacred in this country.  It is an important tool for young people seeking to create change in a country where political processes often don’t include them and legislators often don’t heed them. In Nashville this week, students exercised that right, demanding their legislators take action to reduce gun violence in Tennessee. Democrat representatives Justin Jones (the body’s youngest member), Justin Pearson, and Gloria Johnson joined the protest. Now, these members have been stripped of committee assignments and face expulsion from the legislature - after Republican leadership cleared the protest by force.  

Advocates for Youth welcomes the introduction of the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA) in the 118th Congress. WHPA is an important step that would prohibit states from imposing onerous restrictions on abortion, much like the bills we’re seeing passed all across the country that create a patchwork of restricted access in a post-Dobbs era.

Advocates for Youth applauds today’s re-introduction of the EACH (Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Care) Act, legislation which lifts bans on abortion coverage, led by Senators Duckworth, Murray, and Hirono in the Senate. Every person, no matter their income, how they are insured, and where they live should have access to affordable abortion care when they need it.

Advocates for Youth strongly condemns the so-called “Parents’ Bill of Rights Act” that is being debated and voted by the House floor this week. The lawmakers introducing this so-called “parents’ rights” bill in the House are the same who are seeking to further ban abortion, attack LGBTQ rights, restrict access to gender-affirming healthcare, remove books and history lessons from libraries and schools, and who are also trying to ban birth control.

Advocates for Youth is appalled to see that the attacks on transgender young people have escalated to Congress. We are strongly opposed to H.R. 734, a harmful and discriminatory federal bill that would create a blanket ban under Title IX to prevent transgender women and girls- at all levels of education- from playing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

We are outraged and deeply saddened by the anti-trans bills that have passed in the Tennessee Legislature  and in Kentucky’s House of Representatives. Shame on the legislators who passed these bills and on Governor Bill Lee, who signed Tennessee’s into law. We urge Kentucky’s Senate and, ultimately, Governor Andy Beshear to oppose their state’s harmful bill as it progresses through the legislature.