Today, May 18, is Infertility Advocacy Day. This year, RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, is teaming up with the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Nearly 250 constituents have gathered from around the country to fight for improvements for those living with infertility. Long-time advocate, Risa Levine, is among them and shares this message with us as today’s guest blogger.

To my fellow advocates,

We are at a strange place in our history for women of our generation.  After the dormancy of the post Viet Nam war era, we are finally seeing a reawakening of political consciousness, a resurgence of social activism in an era when most public engagement has been reserved for Super Bowl ticker tape parades. We are seeing people take to the streets outside government offices, we are seeing hundreds of thousands of women marching all over the country. And we are seeing crumbs of response. Bill O’Reilly is history. That’s something.

Most of us don’t remember the sixties, a time of anti war protests, suspicion of government, overthrowing of a well established social order. A time when “burn your bra” was not just a symbol or catchphrase, but a revolutionary, engaged act of actual resistance to social norms that far eclipsed the message attempted to be sent by wearing knitted pink pussy caps.

But for the most part, the resistance agenda has been reactionary, one of anger, fiery Roman candles in the night. An affirmative legislative agenda has not quite yet been identified and the methodology has been murky. This era of #resistance was triggered by one man, and the mistreatment of one woman. But there are myriad inequities that have been brewing for a long time. Occupy Wall Street reflected those divisions but failed to achieve meaningful change beyond sloganeering. Similarly, the signs at all of the recent marches range from reproductive rights to immigration to LGBT rights to guns – while all require respect for people, the only proposed solution, dump trump, doesn’t address the underlying problems.   “Resistance” alone, is not solutions-based.

Risa wth Gloria Steinem, her first role model, getting out the vote in PA

Anger – when properly directed – is good. Anger can be motivating. Anger can spur people to turn off the TV and take to the streets. But that “fight or flight” adrenaline response to anger without proper outlets, a cogent agenda and a clear end goal, can become unhealthy. And unrequited. The problem with resistance, like the mantra of the 60s, “never trust anyone over the age of 30,” is that it will, by definition, fail, as the aging process is scientific fact.

While our efforts to address the fundamental unfairness that is experienced by infertility patients should be – and because of some of our advocates’ efforts sometimes is – an issue for #resistance, it is more an exercise in Persistence. A diagnosis of infertility IS a pre-existing condition that could bar one from obtaining health insurance if the House legislation were to pass the Senate, but even the most liberal outlets neglect to include infertility on their comprehensive list of diseases that would bar infertility patients from coverage: we have much work to do to educate even our natural allies. Let’s not forget that.

However, when we hit Capitol Hill, we aren’t coming only from a place of adrenaline-producing anger. Anger at the unfairness, sure. But we aren’t acting merely in opposition to the current zeitgeist. We aren’t seeking confrontation. And we aren’t simply fighting a misogynist agenda. We are promoting education, family values, long term protection and science.  We are seeking to right a wrong practiced by both parties for decades. We are in it for the long game.  We are fighting for families. For traditional values reinforced by modern scientific advances. Love and Science, hand in hand. We must be above partisanship. We are above the divisions in this country. We personify Persistence.

Risa with Hillary Clinton in New York City: Discussing Matters of State.

Whatever your personal feelings about where we are at this very, very historical juncture, on May 18, stay focused on the positive. We are advocating FOR something. For more rights for ourselves and for our families. For future families.  For our military. For the safety and integrity of our bodies. We come in peace – we simply need to know that our health concerns are being addressed. We do and we will exercise our voting rights if we aren’t heard, but we come as constituents with problems that Congress can address. Ask them for their support. But don’t leave without their understanding.