Words of Choice: Up the Creativity

Opportunities: Soliciting Art, Posters for Repro Justice Display

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Fri, 29 May 2026 05:27:42 +0000

Add your signs and designs in support of reproductive justice to a newly-launched online campaign.

Athena Project, a Colorado-based arts group with the motto "Amplify Women Amplify Arts," is conducting a one-month campaign through most of June 2026 of publicly-submitted art related to reproductive justice.

The goal: to inspire audiences to take action in support of reproductive justice.

People are invited to send in their art or protest photos.

Selected images will be displayed throughout the month, and possibly thereafter, on the Athena social media (such as Insta @athenaprojectarts), along with suggested calls to action using the hashtag #ReproductiveJustice.

Athena invites submissions of:

1) Repro Justice art pieces. Samples of past pieces Athena has projected are on this gallery. There you'll see graphic designs, paintings, photography and textile art: submissions in any art form are welcome.

2) Protest sign images. People are invited to share a photo of a protest sign that you made or took on a Reproductive-Justice related topic. "Make sure that NO face is visible in the photographs unless it is your own."

Focusing on Reproductive Justice

To help people find the right pieces to submit, the group offers a definition and history of Reproductive Justice, drawing upon the 1994 description of the Women of African Descent for Reproductive Justice. Athena believes "that every person deserves access to the rights and resources necessary to make decisions about their own bodies. We unequivocally support Reproductive Justice.

"Reproductive Justice means we ensure that ALL humans have the resources and freedom to make informed decisions about their reproductive lives and receive adequate care, regardless of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, economic status, and disability.

"Reproductive rights are human rights. Athena Project understands the concept of #ReproductiveJustice as rooted in the demand for universal reproductive rights for ALL human beings: The right to have a child; the right NOT to have a child; the right to raise children in safe and healthy environments; the right to self-determine any reproductive procedures and one’s gender identity."

Athena Project also recognizes that Reproductive Justice touches upon many intersectional concerns, including disproportionate impacts on communities of color, people with disabilities, economically-stressed, LGBTQ+, access, health insurance. Special action targets of month-long campaign include encouraging people to check their voter registration, engage in political activism, participate in protests and volunteer.

Submitting Your Repro Justice Art

Athena writes that "artists are a powerful force in the fight for social justice." And the coordinator of this project, Iris Stanfill, writes, "The power of art to promote equity, demand justice, and spark transformative change is a force to be reckoned with."

To submit your art, whether posters or protest photos, go to the Google form at this link. In addition to standard identifying information and assurances that the work is yours, you are asked to share, optionally, why you took the photo or created the artwork, and what resonated about it or inspired you. Submissions may also be sent by email to istanfill@athenaprojectarts.org or by Instagram DM @athenaprojectarts.

There is no submission fee. People who submit their art become eligible for a chance to win Athena merch or Reproductive Justice art print.

DETAILS: Athena Project Repro Justice Protest Photos and Art
Website: athenaprojectarts.org
ReproJustice Art Invite: https://athenaprojectarts.org/taking-action-for-reproductive-justice
Submission Form: bit.ly/4t7106K
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AthenaProjectArts
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/athenaprojectarts @athenaprojectarts
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/athena-project
Email: istanfill@athenaprojectarts.org or info@athenaprojectarts.org.
Hashtag: #ReproductiveJustice

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: Athena Project: Top-Art created by Julie Kitzies for Athena ReproJustice Campaign/Lower- Photo by Aimee Starr

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

X: @ChoiceTheater @ReproJWalk
Instagram: @ReproFreedomArts
Website: www.reprofreedomarts.org

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'Barefoot and Pregnant' Country Song Rocks Post-Roe Era

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Tue, 19 May 2026 04:36:01 +0000

It's entirely appropriate that the post-Dobbs anthem for reproductive freedom has a distinctly country sound.

Barefoot & Pregnant by Gwen Levey and The Breakdown has amassed 25 million views on its platforms, according to Levey, who is the lead singer and co-writer.

The song, with catchy lyrics and an equally catchy tune, was launched on TikTok by the country-rock singer after the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade and ended federal protection for abortion rights. The song quickly went viral.

The YouTube video with tongue--in-cheek video images -- think Handmaid's Tale with irony and humor woven into it -- has gathered three-quarters of a million views and hundreds of comments.

Written by Levey in collaboration with Will Rambeaux and Sherrie Austin, the first verse and the chorus of the song reflect the punchy commentary on what it means to have your rights tossed out:

What do we do with the girl next door?
She's got no choice like she did before
What do we do with the farmer's daughter?
The court took away what her mama fought for
Ask the good old boys drinkin' whiskey and rye
What do we do with Miss American Pie,let's keep her

[Chorus]
Barefoot and pregnant and down on the farm
Cookin' in the kitchen and cleanin' out the barn
Prayin' in church, a credit to her gender
Poppin' out babies like a Pez dispenser
Nine outta 10 evangelicals would agree, let's keep her
Barefoot and pregnant
Like the good lord meant her to be

Levey has not been shy about her motivation for releasing the song as a critique of conservative 'family values.' She is outspoken about being a survivor of child and adult sexual abuse. Now, she also criticizes country music stations that refuse to play the song, even though it has a huge following and the video won the Award of Excellence for Best Music Video at the Best Shorts Competition.

Levey also sings at protest events, both in Tennessee, where she now lives, and at the 2024 Day for Democracy, the 2025 People’s March, and Network Nova’s 2025 Women’s Power Summit in Washington, D.C., according to her website bio.

Barefoot & Pregnant encouraged Levey "to make it her mission to use her art to fuel her activism and got on her soapbox about the importance of women’s rights."

She does just that. A sample post on Instagram: “Keep fighting, keep using your voice, do not give up, we are not going back!!”

She was named last summer by Bust Magazine as 'one of five female artists you should be following right now." Writer Colleen Luckette, "The Abortion Influencer," did a long-form commentary well before that, describing Levey's ability to blend "powerful lyrics with a passion for justice" in a Medium article, "Barefoot & Defiant: Nashville Country Rock Singer Strikes a Chord for Women’s Rights."

Parallels Going Back a Half-Century

Levey's viral song is reminiscent of another country song, more than fifty years earlier, that celebrated reproductive freedom -- 'The Pill' -- by the popular country singer Loretta Lynn.

The Pill came out as the reproductive freedom movement was in ascendance, and the U.S. Supreme Court had recently declared -- finally -- that birth control is a matter of personal privacy and that contraceptives could be legally dispensed. Lynn's song celebrated that newfound freedom in her snappy 1972 song, as described in this post.

Loretta Lynn

All of the lyrics are printed in the post, but some key lines are:

All these years I've stayed at home
While you had all your fun
And every year that's gone by
Another baby's come

There's a gonna be some changes made
Right here on nursery hill
You've set this chicken your last time
'Cause now I've got the pill

With a similarly joyous country sound, Loretta Lynn's song was widely banned from country radio. But like Gwen Levey's Barefoot and Pregnant, that didn't stop people from listening to it and it hit five on the country charts.

In one interview, Lynn said that doctors told her the song woke up rural women to contraceptive options in a way that the literature and lectures had not.

And both Loretta Lynn's classic and Gwen Levey's new anthem are the best reminders that the need for reproductive freedom is not limited to one party, one state, one geographic center, one type of life trajectory or one genre of music.

DETAILS: 'Barefoot and Pregnant,' by Gwen Levey and The Breakdown
Website: gwenleveyandthebreakdown.com
YouTube: https://youtu.be/5Sa30gLVDxA?si=bdZQPGgVWJDJAHiz
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/gwenleveymusic/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GwenLeveyandTheBreakdown
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gwenleveymusic
Lyrics: https://orcd.co/notthegirlnextdoor
Linked Tree: https://linktr.ee/gwenleveyandthebreakdown

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: Gwen Levey Video and TikTok; Loretta Lynn on Tour, 1975, Gene Pugh (cropped)

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Upcoming Fall 2026: ReproEco: Plays with Dance

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

X: @ChoiceTheater @ReproJWalk
Instagram: @ReproFreedomArts
Website: www.reprofreedomarts.org

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Researching Back-Alley Deaths and Writing 'Given No Choice'

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 17:21:28 +0000

by Cody McDevitt, guest blogger

The origin of Given No Choice: A History of Abortion Rights was not a book proposal. It was, at first, a failed article.

I had set out to write for a local alternative weekly about a coroner who had performed autopsies on women who died during back-alley abortions. The subject had a grim clarity -- the kind of story that resists abstraction because the consequences are so plainly written on the body.

But the article never materialized due to a lack of interest among editors during the Roe v. Wade era, when many thought abortion was a settled issue. What did emerge from that effort was something more consequential: a conversation with the coroner himself, Cyril Wecht.

When I suggested the topic might sustain a longer treatment, he mentioned that he had spent decades collecting newspaper clippings and documents related to abortion -- an archive assembled over 60 years. That detail altered the scale of the project. It suggested not just a story, but a record; not just an episode, but a history waiting to be reconstructed.

Doing the Research

The book, Given No Choice, that followed was built through methods that were, by necessity, expansive. The Vanderbilt Television News Archive became a central resource. I worked through it systematically, watching how abortion was framed and debated for a national audience over time. It provided a record not just of events, but of how those events were understood as they unfolded.

I also relied on Newspapers.com, reconstructing cases by cross-referencing scattered accounts and rebuilding timelines from contemporaneous reporting. This method -- only recently feasible at scale --will become even more accessible as microfilm archives are integrated with AI systems that can sort and synthesize historical records.

That work was supplemented by more traditional means. I read widely across legal, historical, and sociological literature, and conducted hundreds of interviews through my newsletter, Repro Rights Now.

History, when it is still being lived, requires listening as much as it requires reading.
What surprised me most was not resistance, but openness. The women I spoke with were willing to engage, to explain, to include.

My presence as a man was noted, but rarely emphasized. What mattered more was the seriousness of the work. That openness underscored something I came to appreciate more fully: the quality of leadership within the movement. Figures like Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem reveal, upon closer study, a kind of strategic intelligence and persuasion that transcends identity.

There is something instructive in that for anyone interested in leadership. To learn from those who have operated effectively in difficult circumstances is to expand one’s own capacity for judgment—and to better understand how to lead across difference.

If the book has a central purpose, it is to provide historical grounding for a debate often conducted without one. Without understanding how the issue evolved, it becomes difficult to engage with it in depth. My aim was not to settle the argument, but to inform it -- to offer readers a foundation from which they can explore further, including the work of historians such as Leslie Reagan and Ricki Solinger.

Following the Story

The project extended beyond the book.

I developed a play centered on the trial of Aleck Bourne, though the more compelling figure proved to be Joan Malleson, who helped arrange the abortion and was deeply involved in reform efforts. Her story raises difficult questions about strategy and the ethical complexity of using individual cases to drive systemic change.

I am also looking to extend this work into the theater in collaboration with established professionals who can bring historical material to life on stage.

The play is meant to be a living project, shaped by directors and actors who understand how to translate complex history into something immediate and human. There is a rare opportunity here: Malleson’s son is still alive, giving an actress the chance to speak with him directly and shape the role with a level of authenticity few productions can claim. Anyone interested in developing, directing, or performing in the project is welcome to reach out at codymcdevitt@gmail.com.

In the end, Given No Choice is an attempt to connect the archival with the contemporary, the legal with the lived, the past with the present. If it succeeds, it will not be because it resolves the tensions within the subject, but because it illuminates them.

The book is available through major retailers, including Amazon, in paperback, hardcover, and e-book formats. More of my ongoing work can be found at reprorights.substack.com.

Cody McDevitt is an investigative reporter based in western Pennsylvania. He has won a Golden Quill and awards from the Pennsylvania Newsmedia Association and the Pennsylvania Associated Press Media Editors Organization. He can be reached at codymcdevitt@gmail.com.

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: Book cover

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Upcoming Fall 2026: ReproEco: Plays with Dance

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

X: @ChoiceTheater @ReproJWalk
Instagram: @ReproFreedomArts
Website: www.reprofreedomarts.org

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Abortion Stories Earn Webby Nomination for Podcast

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:06:00 +0000

A podcast nomination for a prestigious Webby Award 2026 (news and politics category) shines a light on two people providing the essential needs for abortion care post-Dobbs, one through pill delivery by mail and the other with clinical care for in-person services (and some pill delivery, too).

These, of course, are two essentials to abortion access in the U.S., and the podcast manages to provide a big-picture view, too.

The podcast, The State of Abortion, 3 years since Dobb, is from The Story Exchange, a nonprofit media organization ("For Women, By Women") that aims to provide "inspiration and information to entrepreneurial women."

The episode nominated for an award was produced by Coleen DeBaise, executive editor of The Story Exchange, and Sue Williams, site co-founder (with Victoria Wang). The nominated program aired in 2025, but it's still on-target as we now approach Dobbs four years out. In 33 minutes, the podcast gives a genial, crisp and information-packed view of the bold and righteous activities supporting abortion care today. (Go here and scroll down to listen for free; look for an image of a pregnancy test -- see picture below.)

The State of Abortion podcast features interviews with women who are at the forefront of delivering abortion care -- Angel Foster and Julie Burkhart (pictured above). The program, tightly edited, is interwoven with key news clips on major abortion-rights developments pre- and post-Dobbs.

The hosts note that, according to trusted reporting, the number of abortions in the U.S. has risen since the Dobbs decision ended a federal constitutional right to abortion, an outcome that is a surprise to many observers. The podcast answers why that is the case.

Pill Access

One answer is in the 2023 formation of the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project, called The MAP, and other similar online services. Co-founder of The Map, Angel Foster, is a professor and physician and she describes how their service facilitates patient access to abortion pills across the country by online, phone and text (think telehealth without the video), delivering abortion medication to people in any state, including those that have banned abortion.

Foster's group can do this because Massachusetts is a state where abortion is legal and is also one of several states (eight to date) that has a law protecting the doctors who send out pills, known as a shield law. The doctors are 'shielded' from nasty lawsuits or criminal charges when anti-abortion prosecutors in ban states try to stop their residents from getting the pills by mail. The Massachusetts shield law holds that if the services are rendered by a licensed doctor in the state, then, for the purposes of care, the patient is also in that state.

Many patients of The MAP are in rural communities; a large number are in Texas. Pills generally cost $75; some patients have subsidies that lower those costs. The MAP program reached nearly 11,000 patients in 2024.

Angel Foster; at top: Julie Burkhart

Abortion pills now account for 60 percent of abortions in the U.S. The MAP service operates with five clinicians, an office staff and volunteers who hold packing parties and raise funds.

In the podcast, Foster talks about why she started the program, and acknowledges that there are risks (a doctor in New York has been sued and one state has attempted to charge her criminally, for example). “They’ll come after us. I’m sure,” says Foster. But, she adds, "We feel really confident in what we are doing."

Clinic Access

The second interview, of Julie Burkhart, describes how the challenges and satisfaction in opening a new clinic in Wyoming. Burkhart, a veteran healthcare provider, had worked for the much-admired Dr. George Tiller, the Kansas doctor who was assassinated in 2009 -- on the podcast, she describes it as leaving "a hole in your heart." Since then, she continued to develop new facilities to provide abortion services, both before and after Dobbs in Kansas, Oklahoma, and now Wyoming.

Burkhart's Wyoming facility, Wellspring Health Access in Casper, WY, offers surgical abortion care in-person, as well as abortion pills by telemedicine. Burkhart has had her share of challenges, including an arson that forced rebuilding, and efforts to make abortion illegal in Wyoming, which she discusses on The Story Exchange podcast.

The clinic has also been able to serve women in Wyoming and those from 18 other states who travel there, including from South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Utah and Idaho, which have restricted abortion care. It shows, the program says, that even with abortion pills, here is still a need for 'bricks and mortar' facility.

Burkhart describes how she keeps going because she is passionate about what she does. As for fear -- "If we can walk through it, even though it's so frightening ... it's okay on the other side of that," she says. "And also not to be reckless, to be smart about what we are doing."

As with Foster, The Story Exchange also publishes a separate print interview with Burkhart, The Resilient Provider Who’s Survived Arson, Death Threats and Supreme Court Rulings

The Story Exchange (free site) also invites readers to share their own stories, and covers topics ranging from climate action to culinary pioneers, to myriad stories on healthy baby products, menopause care, and leading women.

Details: "The State of Abortion: 3 Years Since Dobbs" from The Story Exchange
Website: https://thestoryexchange.org
Podcast access (scroll down): https://thestoryexchange.org/podcast
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/thestoryexchange.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheStoryExchange
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/thestoryexchange
Email: info@thestoryexchange.org

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: screenshots, The Story Exchange; pictured at top: Julie Burkhart

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Upcoming Fall 2026: ReproEco: Plays with Dance

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

X: @ChoiceTheater @ReproJWalk
Instagram: @ReproFreedomArts
Website: www.reprofreedomarts.org

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Abortion Zine: Free for Group Activity, Individual Need

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 22:37:00 +0000

A new zine emerging from the Midwest provides people with handy instructions on how to self-manage their abortions and find resources.

“Your Liberation, Your Rules: A Support Guide” is prepared by a health professional and activist who uses the name Jayne.

In the zine, Jayne gives concise and trustworthy information about how to self-manage an abortion, where to find resources for health and emotional aid, and affirmations to support people navigating abortion decisions.

Fresh off the press, the zine is distributed virtually for free as a template, along with instructions about how to print, cut and fold – making it a perfect project for a group activity or an individual action.

"Your Liberation, Your Rules" can be printed on two sheets of paper, front and back. It is then cut and folded into 16 pages that are approximately 4 inches by 5 inches and can collated and then neatly tucked away into a drawer or bag for distribution or use.

The compact zine has pages in black and white, easy for copying. With graphic designs that keep the text attractive and ultra readable, and illustrations that offer outlines of shapes like butterflies or hearts, the zine can be used as-is. Or people sit down with crayons and colored pencils and color the illustrations.

In an email exchange, Jayne described how and why the zine came about.

Jayne, it turns out, is a healthcare worker, who has been working in the field for ten years, focusing on reproductive healthcare for the last five years:

Jayne writes:

“Abortion care is where I found my home in healthcare and truly changed my life. My work in abortion care changed the way I showed up as a health care worker.

I have cared for hundreds of patients accessing abortion care. In addition, I love working with trans and nonbinary folks accessing hormone therapy.

My work in abortion care began right as the Dobbs decision (2022) shifted the abortion landscape as we knew it, for many decades.

My idea for the zine came from working with community organizing pals here in the Midwest and that helped my vision come to life. In my city, artists host and table at Zine Fest, where a pal was tabling and encouraged me to put this zine together to distribute. They provided me the template and helped me assemble the pages in the zine format.

Zines are a quick way to distribute education and can be stored discreetly in a safe place if you ever need it.

I decided that I wanted folks to be able to color their zine how they desire, or leave it black and white if they’d rather. I mainly wanted an easy guide to navigating all of the great organizations that help provide abortion navigation and support to those seeking care.

It can feel very isolating and daunting to navigate obtaining abortion care. I hope this resource can help individuals find support from organizations that will support their choice and freedom however they need it.

This zine has been provided to my local abortion fund as well as others in the Midwest and east coast, and to organizers in New York and Tennessee.

I plan to continue to reach out to abortion funds to share the design if they wanted to distribute it as a resource. I encourage folks to take copies for friends and distribute how they see fit.

Out in the world is where this little guide belongs!"

People can request templates by emailing and describing where they intend to distribute so that Jayne can keep track of the places that it reaches. The zine design and template are shared by email or social media messaging. There is no charge.

Send requests for the zine design/template for "Your Liberation, Your Rules: A Support Guide" to: ABzinerequests@proton.me

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: 'Your Liberation, Your Rules' Abortion Zine

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Upcoming Fall 2026: ReproEco: Plays with Dance

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

X: @ChoiceTheater @ReproJWalk
Instagram: @ReproFreedomArts
Website: www.reprofreedomarts.org

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'PLAN C' Play Explores Covert Networks Across Time

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 15:53:00 +0000

by guest writer Carrie Heitman

The new play PLAN C opening in New York follows a present-day group in a small American town that quietly organizes to help people access reproductive healthcare, alongside the historic story of a covert group of women operating a secret communication network in 1628 Europe.

The play by Hook & Eye Theatre is about networks -- how they form, how they survive and how ordinary people sustain one another when official systems fail them.

Created in a devised, ensemble process, the characters are set across two timelines centuries apart. Both confront strikingly similar questions: What do you do when the law is unjust? How do people share information safely? And what courage is required to act when the stakes are personal and immediate?

A comedy -- sometimes biting, sometimes absurd -- PLAN C is about intelligence operations, friendship and the ingenuity required to keep a network alive.

At its core, the play celebrates the often invisible labor of women supporting one another: passing information, creating pathways and sustaining community in moments when institutions fail to protect them.

Investigating Hidden Systems

We began exploring this project several years ago, during a period of enormous upheaval around reproductive rights in the United States.

The questions that sparked the work were not theoretical. They were practical: When civic frustration is high, what can individuals actually do? What happens when you are not a policymaker, when you cannot pass a bill, when the mechanisms of power feel distant or inaccessible?

History provided an answer repeated again and again: people improvise. They build networks. They pass information quietly. They accompany one another to borders, to doctors’ appointments, to courtrooms. Long before formal institutions caught up, communities created their own systems of care and resistance.

We also discovered extraordinary historical figures -- women who operated intelligence networks, smuggled information, and ran sophisticated communication systems during times of political and religious conflict in early modern Europe.

Rather than simply dramatizing these figures, we used their stories as inspiration to invent something new. The 1628 story line in PLAN C imagines a clandestine “chamber” of women who gather information and quietly reshape political outcomes from the margins.

At the same time, we were looking closely at contemporary grassroots networks working to expand access to reproductive healthcare -- organizations that distribute accurate medical information, support patients across state lines and advocate for bodily autonomy in practical ways.

The present-day story line of PLAN C reflects the ingenuity and determination of these modern networks.

Creating A Lab for Storytelling

Hook & Eye Theater developed the play through our ensemble-driven devising process. Rather than starting with a finished script, we began with research, historic documents, news articles, and long conversations with collaborators and advisors.

From there, the ensemble built scenes through improvisation, movement, and debate. Actors experimented with language, character relationships and narrative structure, while designers explored how sound, lighting and visual imagery could help audiences move fluidly between centuries.

Our rehearsal room became a laboratory for storytelling. Scenes were built, dismantled, and rebuilt again.

We asked questions constantly: What information is being passed in this moment? Who holds power here? Who is listening? Who is at risk?

The play’s two timelines began to echo each other, revealing that technology changes, but the human mechanics of organizing -- trust, courage, secrecy, humor -- remain remarkably consistent.

Humor is essential to the piece. The situations in PLAN C are high stakes, but the characters are clever, flawed and funny. Comedy allows the play to examine difficult questions without becoming didactic. It also reflects reality: humor is one way that communities sustain themselves under pressure. Laughter creates resilience, and resilience keeps networks alive.

Honoring Possibility and the Arts

We hope audiences take away from PLAN C a sense of possibility.

The play does not present heroes in the traditional sense. Instead, it shows ordinary people deciding -- sometimes reluctantly, sometimes boldly -- to participate in something larger than themselves. Small actions accumulate. Information travels hand to hand. A conversation leads to another conversation. A network begins to form.

Art has a unique role in advancing social justice because it allows us to rehearse empathy and imagination. Policy debates can feel abstract, but theater brings us into direct contact with human choices and consequences.

In the shared room of a theatre, watching a story unfold in real time, audiences experience the tension, humor, fear and courage alongside the characters. The questions become personal rather than theoretical.

Theater also creates space for dialogue. After select performances of PLAN C, we host conversations with organizations working on reproductive rights, health and justice. These discussions invite audiences to reflect on the play and to learn about real-world efforts that support bodily autonomy and access to care. The goal is not simply to present a story, but to connect that story to ongoing work in our communities.

PLAN C ultimately argues that social change rarely begins with grand gestures. More often, it begins with people sharing information, looking out for one another and refusing to accept that they are powerless. Networks -- past and present -- are built through trust, creativity and persistence.

Carrie Heitman is the Artistic Director of Hook & Eye Theatre, and the director of PLAN C.

PLAY SYNOPSIS:

PLAN C is a darkly funny, time-collapsing caper of resistance, resourcefulness and rebellion by Hook & Eye Theater Company in which 17th-century espionage collides with a modern small-town shop. Imperial postmistress Alexandrine Von Taxis, Brussels 1620, moves more than mail through the empire’s hands during The Thirty Years’ War. In present-day West Virginia, Charley Gibson runs her family’s hardware store, where lockers hide more than tools. PLAN C exposes how rebellion takes shape - through wit, nerve, and crossing a line.

Using movement, original music and ensemble-driven storytelling, PLAN C theatrically flips between two eras to create a madcap theatrical experience that reflects the complexities of the present moment. With Hook & Eye’s signature devising style, this nine-person ensemble brings to life a fierce and funny story of whispers, defiance and impossible choices that reflect the complexities of the present moment. PLAN C asks what it takes to keep hope alive in times of surveillance and silence.

Directed by Carrie Heitman,the performance features Parnia Ayari, Elizabeth London, Cynthia Babak, Meghan Grover, Jesse Koehler, Nylda Mark, Vann Dukes, Rina Dutta and Daniel Olguin.

The show plays from March 12 - April 12, 2026, at The Tank, 312 W 36 St, NYC NY 10018.

DETAILS

PLAN C by Hook & Eye Theater
WHERE: The Tank, 312 W 36 St, NY NY 10018
WHEN: March 12 - April 12, 2026
TICKETS: https://tinyurl.com/PlanCTankTickets
WEBSITE: www.hookandeyetheater.com
IS: @hookandeyetheater

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: Hook and Eye Theater

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Upcoming Fall 2026: ReproEco: Plays with Dance

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

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Podcast: Two Abortion Doctors Pierce Contemporary Issues

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 21:56:00 +0000

Two doctors from North Carolina opened a podcast on reproductive health and rights that is insightful, straight-to-the-point, and informative.

Called ‘Outlawed,’ the podcast is the work of Dr. Beverly Gray, a professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy, and Dr. Jonas Swartz, also a professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the same institute. Both doctors, it’s important to know, are entirely supportive of abortion access and rights.

The podcast episodes, beginning in November 2024, generally run from 25 minutes to 50 minutes, although two run 90 minutes. Each is organized around a specific topic, such as abortion pills or how people traveling for abortion find transportation or housing.

“These podcasts aim to provide evidence-based information, share stories from the frontlines of reproductive care, and discuss the impact of changing abortion laws in the U.S.,” states the Outlawed mission.

The first program by the duo, Why Learn About Abortion, also describes their intentions. A 3-minute trailer introduces season two (2025-2026), as the doctors talk about their programming plans.

In the episodes, the hosts invite a guest, such as the author of a book or a leading expert or historian, and pull out essential knowledge. Dr. Gray and Dr. Swartz are ever-congenial and manage to keep the discussions framed in language that is shed of academic pompous and legalist or medical discourse, as well as the insider jokiness that can undermine many podcast ventures.

The program now has 25 listings (one a rebroadcast), creating an exceptionally strong archive of listenable discussions of reproductive health topics. From fall to spring, they air twice a month.

A recent example is ‘Meet the Abortion Pill Revolution,’ in which the doctors delve into self-managed abortion care with abortion pills. They engage with the founder of plancpills.org, Elisa Wells, about mail distribution of pills, and also with Rebecca Kelliher, author of the book 'Just Pills: The Extraordinary Story of A Revolution in Abortion Care.'

Another recent program of Outlawed features a conversation with Heather Booth, one of the founders of the pre-Roe Jane Collective that provided abortion care. In addition to historical context, she talks about how organizing networks and action plans are active and essential today.

Episode two on November 25, 2025, released the same day as the introductory podcast, is an in-depth conversation with lawyer Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the Reproductive Freedom Project at the ACLU, who talks about the post-Dobbs changes in legal services in a program titled, Roe v Everyone.

Several episodes deal with post-Dobbs logistics that force people to travel from states with abortion bans (about a dozen) to states where care can be accessed, including on travel and housing for patients. One episode delves into the travel issues facing doctors – including hosts Dr. Gray and Dr. Swartz -- who travel to other states to provide care.

Aired twice is the program, ‘Are Women People?’ in which the doctors interview Northwestern University Professor Katie Watson, the author of 'Scarlet A: The ethics, law, and politics of ordinary abortion.' The program delves into harmful myths about abortion, the impact of abortion bans on other forms of reproductive healthcare, including IVF, and the ethics of reproductive health care. The 28-minute program aired in January 2025, and again at the end of the year.

Reviews for the podcasts by Dr. Gray and Dr. Swartz have been very strong. ‘I’m glad I found this podcast. It demonstrates the importance and impact of autonomy,’ writes one listener. ‘Everyone should know the details about abortion that this podcast unfolds,’ writes another.

The Outlawed podcasts can be accessed on podcasting sites, but also can be heard without a subscription fee by going directly to links on a web page.

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: From Outlawed podcasts

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

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Stop Silencing Us! Abortion Doctor-Author Censored at Texas U

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 01:53:00 +0000

Dr. Shelley Sella, the author of a book about her experiences as an abortion provider, was censored and abruptly banned from giving a planned talk to medical students at Texas Tech University's Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, Texas.

Dr. Sella’s book, ‘Beyond Limits” Stories of Third-Trimester Abortion Care,’ is about the real stories of people she encountered in her work. The university chapter of Medical Students for Choice invited her to speak to them on January 26, 2026. The program was called, "Beyond Limits: A Conversation with Shelley Sella, MD."

Instead, the university announced that the program would not be:“the [Texas Tech] center determined it is not in the best interest of the university to host this event on campus,” according to an anti-abortion publication.

Dr. Sella’s book, published by Beacon Press in 2025, has been widely praised.

“Sella does a stellar job of straightforwardly and compassionately explaining why third-trimester abortions happen: ‘Third-trimester abortions are rare,’ she writes, ‘but the situations that drive women to seek them are not.’ This bursts with insight,” noted Publisher’s Weekly.

The book, which describes and traces her work during one week in her clinic, has been featured in Mother Jones, The Nation, Rewire News Group, The Cut, and on the Feminist Buzzkill Podcast.

Time Magazine published an excerpt from the book. There, Dr. Sella writes: "For 20 years, I was the first woman doctor in the United States to openly provide abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy. My patients' stories -- of trauma, desperation, and resilience -- tell a very different story from the political rhetoric, which often demonizes the procedure, vilifies doctors, and shames those who seek care.

"Though this procedure makes up a relatively small segment of abortion care (by some estimates, around 1%), it is the key to understanding all abortion care. When we listen to those in the most desperate circumstances, we begin to understand everyone who seeks an abortion -- and the urgent need for safe, legal, and accessible care in every trimester."

Dr. Sella is also known for a prominent role in the award-winning documentary film, After Tiller, which follows four doctors who carry on the practices of Dr. George Tiller after he was assassinated by an anti-abortion terrorist who shot him point-blank in the head in church.

Beyond Limits is on the long-list for a Science Writing Award from PEN America, an organization that advocates worldwide for the freedom of expression and the freedom to write as a human right. PEN issued a statement, decrying the censorship of Dr. Sella.

"PEN America sees the censoring of information available to students -- especially medical students --as part of a dangerous nationwide trend that undermines the traditional excellence of American higher education," the organization wrote.

The censorship of Dr. Sella began, it seems, with advocacy against her speaking engagement by two noncampus anti-abortion activists and the school chapter of Turning Point USA, which, ironically, is the group founded by the late Charlie Kirk to advocate for free speech. To cover for their turnabout, the campus Turning Point leader asserted, “This wasn’t a suppression of free speech. ” The problem, he said, is that the talk by Dr. Sella "was planned on government-funded property but would be promoting an illegal activity."

Pamela Merritt, Executive Director of Medical Students for Choice, countered that statement, writing, "Dr. Sella’s book discusses her career providing third trimester abortion care, which is legal if not accessible within the current framework of exceptions in Texas law."

Merritt continued: "Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine must prevent future incidents where medical education is censored for partisan amusement. Students deserve a medical education that prepares them for all potential scenarios, and the public deserves physicians prepared to provide evidence-based care."

FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), another prominent organization that defends free speech, dismissed the "government land" claim as meritless, too. "This argument is immaterial given that 1) speech of a student organization is not the speech of the university ... and 2) the First Amendment protects the mere advocacy of unlawful conduct," wrote Senior Program Counsel of FIRE Haley Gluhanich in a letter to the university leaders.

FIRE also wrote: "Cancelling a student organization’s event that merely discusses a controversial medical procedure because others are opposed to the speaker and her views is not in the best interest
of (the university center) or any other institution of higher education which, by its nature, should be
dedicated to open debate and discussion. Rather, it is viewpoint discrimination, which the
Supreme Court has labeled the most 'egregious' act of censorship.

"As a public institution bound by the First Amendment, (the university) is obligated to protect speech that some members of a community will find controversial or offensive. The First Amendment protects students’ and student groups’ broad expressive right to both invite and hear speakers free from limitations based on 'orthodoxy or popularity of their political or social views.'”

The FIRE letter continues, "Protecting speech that challenges prejudices and
preconceptions is crucial to discussions of medical procedures among medical students and
professionals, who will likely face multiple decisions directly affecting whether their patients
live or die. Allowing political judgments to deny academics and clinicians access to information
and debate about medical procedures will impair the ability to make informed medical
judgments."

Under Supreme Court decisions, FIRE writes, campuses have an even higher obligation to enforce First Amendment protections than other parts of the community: "the vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools."

FIRE, which called for a reversal of the Texas Tech university decision and a promise to uphold free speech protections in the future, also responded in 2023 when three visual artists were censored at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho and select works were removed from an exhibit called 'Unconditional Care: Listening to people's health needs.' This blatant banning is described at length in a prior blog "No Gag Rule: Speak Up for Artists Censored for Referencing Abortion."

In that case, works by Michelle Hartney, Lydia Nobles and Katrina Majkut were summarily removed from a long-planned exhibit. FIRE wrote that if the college were allowed to censor art, it "would restrict a wide range of constitutionally protected expression -- not just in an art exhibit, but in libraries, lecture halls, and student organizations .... in violation of clearly established First Amendment rights."

And FIRE declared in a public statement, "There is no abortion exception to the First Amendment."

ACTION YOU CAN TAKE

Write a letter to Texas Tech leaders, calling upon them to reverse the decision censoring Dr. Sella and Medical Students for Choice; to reschedule, with an apology, Dr. Sella's speech at the university; and to vow that the university supports the free speech rights of all people speaking about reproductive freedom, health, rights and justice.

Send your letter to:

Dr. Lori Rice-Spearman
President of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
President’s Office
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
3601 4th Street
Lubbock, Texas 79430

Dr. Lawrence Schovanec
President of Texas Tech University
Office of the President
Texas Tech University
Administration Building, Room 115
Box 42005
Lubbock, TX 79409-2005

Chancellor Brandon Creighton
Chancellor of the Texas Tech University System
c/o Dede Kirkpatrick, Executive Assistant
Office of the Chancellor
System Administration Building
1508 Knoxville Ave., Ste. 306
Box 42013
Lubbock, TX 79409-2013

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: Website, Shelley Sella, MD

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

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Textile Series Spotlights Those Harmed by Dobbs' Abortion Bans

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 01:29:00 +0000

by Tracy McCabe, guest blogger

"Living and Dying Under Dobbs" is a fabric-book project that tells the stories, in text and textiles, of those dying and suffering because of abortion bans.

The seed for the project was planted in September 2024, when ProPublica broke the story of Amber Thurman’s preventable death in Georgia.

I realized that Amber died for lack of a D and C at age 28, whereas in 1990 I received one at the same age. Deepening the resonance of the contrast in our stories was that Amber left behind a six-year-old son, while I went on to bear a son.

The page I designed in honor of Amber appears in Volume 1 of this ongoing project and simply reads "28."

As I continued to follow Jessica Valenti’s reporting on Substack, Abortion, Every Day, I was stunned to realize how much suffering and death was happening, and that virtually none was being covered in national, mainstream news outlets.

I became determined to tell, represent, and amplify the stories not only of the women who have died but all those maimed and traumatized when denied care for incomplete abortions, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, fatal fetal anomalies, and other pregnancies dangerous to their well-being.

I also tell the stories of those unjustly accused of crimes for miscarriages and legal self-managed abortions and of several health care providers impacted by bans.

As of this writing, I have made seven volumes, which include the stories of almost 50 women.

Inspired by textile “craftivism” like the AIDS Memorial Quilt, I began making 4”x 4” fabric squares to represent the stories. I use mainly appliqué and embroidery, and fashion the squares into six-page accordion style fabric books.

Each square is a pocket that holds a card that tells the story in words. I design the pages based on details from each story. For example, in the case of Adriana Smith, whose body was kept on life support for four months to incubate her fetus, I made a coffin with a uterus. (See above.) The beads around the coffin signify her spirit.

I hope that the clash between the medium of the project – embroidery --- and the horror of the stories intensifies the impact. Embroidery is traditionally associated with stereotypical "feminine" qualities like patience, precision, delicacy, obedience, and smallness.

But I am using needlework to tell bloody stories of state-sponsored violence against women, as in the story of Kaitlyn Joshua, turned away from two Louisiana hospitals while miscarrying, despite bleeding through her jeans.

Or the story of Mallori Patrice Strait, who miscarried in a public restroom and then spent 147 days in jail before a Texas medical examiner cleared her of charges of trying to damage the fetus.

Or Anna Nusslock, whose water broke at 15 weeks, but was refused miscarriage treatment at a Catholic hospital in California and discharged with a bucket and towels “in case something happened in the car.”

Sometimes, the stories lead me to use unusual materials, like the scrap of towel on which I stitched the blood-filled bucket. I’ve also used plastic, links of a necklace, and toilet paper -- whatever I feel will make for a powerful image.

Reading these stories is one thing, but an image that stirs your grief and rage will sear the stories into your heart and mind, which is where I want them to live.

Research by the organization Abortion in America suggests that stories of real people’s experiences with abortion bans can influence opinions and votes.

But what truly motivates me to continue indefinitely is my desire to collect these stories for the future.

Someday, I believe, abortion will be legal again nationwide, but we can never, ever forget who paid the price.

Details: Living and Dying Under Dobbs
Website: www.underdobbs.org
Instagram: @underdobbs

Tracy McCabe is a lifelong maker and professor emerita of English and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at Lake Forest College.

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: copyr. Tracy McCabe

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

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Doing One Good Thing for Roe Day: Plants for Patients

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 21:18:00 +0000

This post is about plants and why we should think about them now as we approach what would have been the 53rd Anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Not just any plants. These are plants from Plants for Patients. Volunteers in one community in North Dakota organize and deliver plants to people seeking abortion care, along with loving notes.

The post focuses on one action in one place, and underscores one of their upcoming activities on January 22, 2026.

January 22 is also the anniversary of the decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, which held that states could not make abortion illegal in all cases. For years, we posted a nationwide guide with descriptions and links to events around the country created to honor the Roe v. Wade Anniversary, sometimes just called "Roe Day."

After the fantastically bad Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Care in June 2022, overturning Roe and sending it to the dustbin of history, we continued to post the Roe Day events, even though they now were memorializing Roe rather than celebrating it for another three years until 2025.

The Roe anniversary blogs, all linked at the bottom of this blog, were and are enormously popular, garnering many hits. They were intended to serve as a counter to the ongoing harassment of anti-abortion forces which reach their peak frenzy in a January march that still happens in many locations.

But this year, we are shifting attention to ONE creative action that ONE community has taken for more than a dozen years and is still taking to support abortion care. Because in the end, that's what we need to do -- take action, big or small, but steady, determined and ongoing, until we secure full reproductive freedom and human rights for one and all.

The Work of Plants for Patients (P4P)

Plants for Patients, or P4P, is a grassroots nonprofit organization located in Fargo, ND/Moorhead, MN. The group began in 2012 and through it, community members offer the gift of plants and notes of support to abortion patients. They describe themselves as "pro-compassion and pro-choice."

"People who have had abortions are offered a handmade ceramic planter, a small plant, and a handwritten note of support to promote both emotional and physical healing, and to establish a connection–an anonymous bridge of love and support–with their community," the group's mission says.

"The program strives to begin breaking down the social stigmas perpetrated against individuals who have experienced abortion by leveraging the kindness of community to create a network of love and support," the group says.

The group, which describes its beginnings as an undergraduate thesis, also writes that its work is built on "social practice art theory." Plants and nature have healing effects, P4P writes.

Now, abortion is banned in North Dakota, excepting exceedingly rare cases. There are no abortion clinics in the state, although the Red River Women's Clinic, previously in North Dakota for 20 years as the sole N.D. clinic, sits across the state border in Moorhead, Minnesota, and serves North Dakota patients from there.

Last year, Plants for Patients delivered 1,100 plants to patients.

According to a 2016 article in High Plains Reader, Plants for Patients was started by Meg Roberts, a ceramist who had an interest in ecotherapy, reproductive health and community engagement. Roberts ran the program from 2012 to 2014 before turning it over to others.

Now community engagement is a hallmark of Plants for People. The plants are homegrown, the pots are hand-made in clay classes, and notes of encouragement are created in group writing sessions.

In clay classes held monthly at the local Katherine Kilbourne Burgum Center for Creativity, community members are invited to make 'pots with a purpose.' The pots are all made by hand sculpting, that is without a pottery wheel. Classes, which have a modest fee, offer different twists and turns -- pots with imprints, pots with animal themes, and so on.

But what is really clear is the steadiness and continuity. Every month.

"Did you miss our most recent clay class? Don't worry! We have them EVERY MONTH! That's right, every 3rd Thursday you can make planters that get donated to the @redriverwomensclinic !" announced one post on the Plants for Patients Facebook page.

After the pots are filled with plants, another group gathers to write notes to patients. The notes are messages of compassion and care. They might be as simple as 'You matter.'

And this is precisely what is coming up on the Roe anniversary, January 22.

"Join us ... as we fill cards with words of compassion for patients at the Red River Women’s Clinic! Cards, pens, and guidance templates will be provided. Come ready to spread the love and spread compassion. Everyone is welcome! Jan 22 – note writing – plants for patients." Facebook post.

Community members can get further involved in deliveries to the Red River Women's Clinic. the clinic writes: "Each abortion patient who goes to the Red River Women’s Clinic is offered a handwritten note of support from a community member, a handmade planter, and succulent or houseplant of their choosing. We think of it like a hug or handshake from the community as they travel along their paths."

Plants for Patients also holds regular fundraisers and auctions with items like one-of-a-kind experiences, local art, and, yes, plants. Donations are also welcome, and people can buy tee-shirts and hoodies on a shopping site. All donations go to cover costs.

Plants for Patients is clear: What does support look like? A plant on a windowsill. A note that says, “You matter." Knowing someone chose care over judgment.

Do One Thing, Do It Every Month

On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade on January 22, do something to support abortion care and access -- write a post on social media, write of note of thanks to an abortion provider, sent a check to an abortion fund, talk to a friend, go to a protest, sticker public walls with safe numbers, call a legislator in your state or city.

And then keep doing it every month! After all, our reproductive rights and human rights are an everyday need, and they need our support!

There are groups that send postcards of gratitude to providers, make aftercare kits for abortion patients, facilitate access to abortion pills, leaflet, make art, and even others that cultivate and deliver plants to abortion patients -- a multitude of ways to connect and contribute.

Posted here and here are some things you can do to make a difference yourself -- or share with a friend who wants to step up.

As our kick-ass hero, Flo Kennedy said, the only sin is sitting on your ass. Don't Agonize, Organize: Wisdom from Flo Kennedy

Details: Plants for Patients
Website https://plantsforpatients.org
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/1695391795178018
Instagram @plants4patients

Contact: plantsforpatientsteam@gmail.com

READ about Roe anniversary events in the past:

2025 Roe Anniversary Events Follow on Heels of People's March, New Reality

2024 Memorializing Shifts to Marching on Roe v Wade Anniversary 51

2023 Roe Anniversary Events: Looking Back, Firing Up

2022 Virtual Roe v. Wade Anniversary Events Take a ReflectiveTone

2021 Coast-to-Coast Virtual Events Honor Roe v Wade Anniversary

2020 Activists Across the Country Honor 47 Years of Roe v Wade Amid Pending Threats

2019 Roe Anniversary Events Mark Stark New Reality

2018 Purpose and Persistence Mark Roe Events

2017 Roe Events Add to Women's March in Demand for Reproductive Freedom

2016 Resolve and Determination Drive 2016 Roe Events

2015 Wary of the Future, ProChoice Activists Mark Roe Event

2014 Roe v. Wade Events Bolster Resolve

2013 Roe at 40: Anniversary Events

Also:

How Roe sounded and felt: Walter Cronkite in 1973.

Listen to Roe and other Supreme Court hearings and decisions

Roe to Doe: Without you, I'm nothing ... the Doe v. Bolton decision on January 22, 1973

Actor Carl H. Jaynes with words from Justice Harry A. Blackmun on YouTube

Listen to the Righteous Words of Justice Sonia Sotomayor on SB8 on YouTube

Watch We Dissent: Voices of Reproductive Rights on YouTube, our Award-Winning film in which actors recreate the writings of the DISSENT in the Dobbs case, and read about it here.

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: Plants for People

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

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Words Matter: Selections from Democracy Writes!

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 19:54:00 +0000

When a group of high-profile artists created a project at the end of the year called Fall of Freedom to encourage artists across the country to challenge encroachments to freedom and democracy, Democracy Writes! began to take shape.

Democracy Writes! became creative resistance in action, calling upon people to write their own thoughts about freedom, democracy, diversity and reproductive rights -- several writers who attended have shared their works, below.

Democracy Writes! was planned by Rhonda Zangwill, writer and workshop leader, Cindy Cooper, playwright and organizer ReproFreedomArts.org, Yuko Kudo, visual artist, and Chaski (Saskia Knowles), an organizer of the Cybernetics Library. It was slaated for November 22 at the Prime Produce Guild Hall in midtown Manhattan.

Fall of Freedom was a call to the arts community "to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation." Hundreds of events, each scheduled by individual artists and arts groups across the country, were visually displayed on a map online.

Our Democracy Writes! team naturally wanted to reinforce the Fall of Freedom messages by engaging with the broader grassroots creativity. We also to make sure that among the rights expressed that reproductive freedom held a place front and center.

In addition to inviting participants to write in a guided workshop, we invited performers into the space to present selections from Reproductive Freedom Is All We Want and other works presented by ReproFreedomArts.org, and Shawn Fischer and Abigail Ramsay opened and closed with performance pieces. Yuko Kudo sang an improvised song around the Fall of Democracy theme, "Art Matters, Courage is Contagious."

In addition, a display table was filled with three dozen banned books -- ranging from Our Bodies Ourselves to RubyFruit Jungle. Chaski set up a table describing the works of the Cybernetics Library, an artist-run space that collects zines and materials related to art and technology. Yuko Kudo created an interactive table, asking people to describe in brief -- on a post-it -- what freedom means to them -- see some of those results below, too.

Rhonda Zangwill

Organizer Rhonda Zangwill describes the day.

"Outside: a beautiful New York City autumn day. Inside: a diverse group gathered for an afternoon of creative activism. Together we embraced free expression as part of Fall of Freedom, a national movement spearheaded by a group of artists to defy authoritarianism and champion freedom.

"Democracy Writes! included a writing workshop, open mic, dramatic readings, a participatory arts exhibition and a banned books table. Our writing prompt, excerpts from 'A House Called Tomorrow' by Alberto Rios, offered inspiration as we wrote together and then shared our words.

"Democracy Writes! drew a group of individuals – from millennials to seniors – who in just a couple of hours became a mutually supportive creative community, united by shared values and a common purpose."

Words Gathered in 'Democracy Writes!'

Participants in Democracy Writes! were invited to share their writings with us. Here is a small sampling of the work from, in Rhonda's words, "our afternoon of literary rabble-rousing."

Taking Action
by Austin Alexis

The constitution is disappearing.
There it goes, out the window.
down the boulevard.
There it flies
up the chimney,
over the hills.

Our goof-ball leaders have shredded it.
They’ve left it to the wind
and have neglected to replace it.

Make history by retrieving it,
by saving it from gutter water,
by taping its fragmented pages
together again.

The constitution is historical
as long as it exists in some form—
damaged but still valued,
damaged but still breathing.

~

Untitled
by Michele D'Aulerio

The feminists of the ‘50s and ‘60s made my house so that today I could live freely, own my own body, have agency and financial independence. They created that house, laid the foundation and fought to build the frame, the walls, the roof, without knowing if they themselves would ever benefit from that hard work. I grew up in a mostly safe house because of their courage and bold actions. They didn't let criticism and ridicule and often threats to their safety stop them. The house they created made my life so comfortable, I didn't know it could be taken away. It felt so effortless, I didn't understand the maintenance that would be required to keep it. I couldn't foresee the demolition that would occur leaving me with nothing to pass on to my nieces. I wasn't prepared to fight, to redo all the work the women before me did. The roof has blown off. The walls are falling down, the frame crumbling and the foundation eroding.

What do I tell my nieces?

How do I explain why they have less autonomy over their own bodies today than I did thirty years ago? I feel unprepared. I don't know how to build a house. I know rage instead of architecture. I'm mad instead of strategic. How do I transform my outrage and disgust to strategy and organization?

What is my first step? To vote and vote well. Yes. Ok, but that feels like passing the buck, electing someone else to do the work, delegating. So, what's left? What do I have to offer? Deep breath. Step back. Slow down. Assess.

Use your words.

Heed the Call
by Amy Grech

Our Nation is
best served by
quiet contemplation.
Thunderous applause
is cause
for jubilant celebration.
Free flowing collaboration.
A wellspring of ideas.
None too big or too small.
There’s room for one-and-all.

Is That How You Really Feel?
by Velina Velikova

Are you saying something to me right now?
I thought I heard you speaking, but maybe I just felt you...
feeling.

Hey! I saw you repost that video.
Do you think we should go?
It looks like tens of thousands of people will show up!
Hmm...
You're right.
There's probably more than enough people going already.

You know, we could go to that holiday food drive this weekend.
It looks like they raised a ton of money to buy groceries for people affected by the SNAP pause.
Oh, you're right.
They got their benefits back!
That's good.
They're probably fine.
Hey. What's on your mind?
I've been feeling a lot lately.
I wonder if you have been, too.

I think we should go.
Even if thousands are already going,
I believe you and I can have an impact.

Food accessibility is a human right.
Let's go and see how we can help.

We're feeling the same things.
Share with me your real words.

Yuko Kudo

And, from the interactive art table by Yuko Kudo, some responses to her prompt, "What 'words' unleash amplify; empower your Freedom today,"

Singing
Dancing
Smile
Love is the answer
Joy is the future
Bodily autonomy

As 2025 turns to the next quarter-century, we're continuing our reliance on words to keep the flames of freedom, democracy, diversity and reproductive justice alive. As the poet Adrienne Rich wrote in "North American Time," and our actors included in their performance:

"Words are found responsible
all you can do is choose them
or choose
to remain silent. Or, you never had a choice,
which is why the words that do stand
are responsible"

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: Photos by @peggyryandesigns, Cindy Cooper, Yuko Kudo

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

X: @ChoiceTheater @ReproJWalk
Instagram: @ReproFreedomArts
Website: www.reprofreedomarts.org

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Spiritual and Faith-Based Site Offers Abortion Positivity

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 07:28:00 +0000

Spiritual support for abortion is available on a comforting special website, AbortionsWelcome.org. It has recently upgraded to provide stories, creative and spiritual activities and tools in an easy-to-navigate format.

AbortionsWelcome.org, operated by the Religious Community for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) supports people who seek abortion care, as well as those who provide abortions or are called to counsel providers or patients.

As a pro-faith endeavor, it stands in essential opposition to the loud religiously-based organizations that denounce abortion and try to blame and stigmatize abortion care.

"(M)any people who have abortions are people of faith, and it can be hard to find affirming and compassionate spiritual resources online in a sea of religious anti-abortion extremism. Our intention and hope is for this site to be a resting place, a sacred space of comfort and care for people on their abortion journeys," the site notes.

Information is presented in categories, such as Elements of Nature; Scared Ritual and Prayer; Scripture and Sacred Text; Meditation; Art, Writing and Music; Stories and Perspectives, and Body Movement and Pain Relief.

For example, under 'Art, Writing and Music,' are: five playlists with music for abortion care, poems from ‘What I Wish: 100 love notes to help you survive, come alive, and thrive after abortion’ by Amanda Kingsley, an earth-based ritual by doula Emma Thomas, guided journaling by Rev. Anna Flemming-Jones, art therapy by Erica Pang, the classic abortion resolution workbook by Margaret Johnston and a writing exercise by Lisa Marie Basile.

The categories can be further filtered by selecting from this list: 'Preparing for Abortion,' 'During Abortion,' and 'After Abortion.'

The writing-based exercise by Lisa Marie Basile is designed to honor "your many selves." Basile describes a writing ritual that involves three candles and string, along with paper. "(Y)ou will work with your many selves, to take a moment to be in tune with the past and the present, and the future. To give each self some space, a pause, a breath, and a moment of prayer and hope. To see your many layers. And to find some perspective," she explains.

The selection Art Therapy for Letting Go leads to a video in which Erica Pang offers a meditative art exercise ... "to help you let go of any weight you've been carrying. Follow along with this step-by-step guide on how to transform the heaviness in your heart into the freedom of a bird."

Erica Pang

A journaling exercise by Rev. Anna Flemming-Jones uses a stone and four questions for reflection: Where have you come from? What is your mother rock? Where are you on your journey? Where do you hope to go from here?

The category 'Scripture and Sacred Text' offers prayers and affirmations emanating from an array of religious beliefs -- Christian and Catholic, Islamic, Jewish. One selection, 'Liturgy of the complicated,' is based on Hebrew text and includes a ritual walk.

A separate category, 'Sacred Ritual and Prayer,' provides guides for 'connecting with the divine.' Here are prayers for providers, for the waiting room, and spiritual support for your abortion journey, among other selections.

Another section on AbortionsWelcome.org, Storytellers and Perspectives offers 21 stories, many first person accounts from the point-of-view of a provider, a doula, and people who have had abortions, as well as not-easily-categorized selections on digital privacy, and more.

The site also has links to Resources, such as finding a provider, abortion pills, an abortion fund or help for young people. The Resources section can be accessed in Spanish, too.

A separate entry for providers offers a clinic pamphlet and a contact for a clinic blessing program. Spiritual Care Providers and Faith Leaders are invited to a Religion and Repro Learning Center.

The site proclaims its values:

Dignity and Autonomy ("We believe reproductive decision-making is sacred and that every person has the right, ability, and responsibility to make their own reproductive decisions, free from stigma and with unhindered access to the care, support, and resources they need to make those decisions")

Compassion (We believe that our call is to accompany people throughout their reproductive journeys and do so without judgment. We center the needs, emotions, and conscience of the individual person as they make decisions and process their experiences. We believe reproductive freedom is religious freedom.")

Whole Person ("We believe in providing holistic, integrated care that honors and tends to the physical, emotional, mental, relational, spiritual, and other needs of people on their reproductive journeys. We believe our call as people of faith is to protect the freedom to access reproductive care.")

In clear, uncluttered design and language, AbortionsWelcome.org makes important strides in establishing a narrative of abortion positivity and spirituality.

For further information, a contact form is provided. Follow (IS) @rcrchoice

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: AbortionsWelcome.com

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

X: @ChoiceTheater @ReproJWalk
Instagram: @ReproFreedomArts
Website: www.reprofreedomarts.org

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Opportunities: Writings, Photos on Lesbians and Repro Justice

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 22:18:00 +0000

Sinister Wisdom, a 'Multicultural Lesbian Literary and Art Journal,' has a call out for works for a special issue on Reproductive Justice and Lesbianism.

The editors write, 'This issue seeks to answer: what is the role of lesbians in the RJ (Reproductive Justice) movement?'

In order to answer that question, Sinister Wisdom is seeking poetry, photography (color for cover and black and white for interior), essays up to 5,000 words and oral histories. (Other formats will be considered.) Writers and artists at all levels are encouraged to submit; photos of lesbians working in reproductive justice are specially solicited. Experimental work is welcomed.

The deadline for submissions is March 31, 2026 (more).

In 2026, Sinister Wisdom will mark its 50th year of quarterly publication, dating its beginnings to 1976.

For this special issue on Reproductive Justice and Lesbianism, Sinister Wisdom wishes to explore diverse topics within the umbrella of Reproductive Justice, drawing upon a definition inspired by the National Black Women's Reproductive Justice Agenda as the "human right to control our sexuality, our gender, our work and our reproduction."

The editors explain, in depth, their understanding of reproductive justice as the legal right to access reproductive health services, along with the addressing "social, economic, and political conditions necessary for individuals to have the resources and support to make autonomous reproductive choices."

They describe those issues as reproductive rights in vitro fertilization, abortion and contraception, and the intersections with "healthcare access, family-building options and the ability to make informed choices about our reproductive health and bodily autonomy."

The publication invites contributors to explore six tenets of reproduction justice as they intersect with queer/lesbian lives. The six: (1) The right to access affirming, affordable health care that recognizes diverse genders and sexualities, takes steps to prevent illness and provide access to healthy food, undertakes relevant research and centers marginalized people; (2) The right to tools that promote bodily autonomy, including comprehensive knowledge about how bodies work, sex education, freedom from shame and violence; (3) The right to have children, including access to fertility care and birthing justice including second-parent adoption and racial politics of sperm donation; (4) The right not to have children, including access to abortion, contraception and noncoercive sex, and dignity for families that do not include children; (5) The right to parent children in safe and healthy environments including access to necessities, freedom from genocide, famine and injustice; and (6) The right to be free of reproductive coercion and violence.

The journal publishes works by Lesbians only. Traditionally it uses a definition from the writer Cheryl Clarke of a lesbian as a woman who says she is a lesbian. In their call for this issue, the Sinister Wisdom editors say: "Lesbianism defined as intimacy between people of marginalized genders," and note that they are using a "non-essentialized" understanding of lesbianism. "Lesbians are not exclusively cisgender women, and we are excited about and encourage submissions that hold and explore the nuances of trans and nonbinary lesbian experiences within reproductive justice. We hope to broaden, rather than constrain, both the lesbian label and the RJ (Reproductive Justice) movement."

Works should be sent through the Reproductive Justice and Lesbian Submittable, although, by request to the editors, other arrangements may be made. Writers should also include a biography of 25 words to 200 words, and social media links. Submissions for the issue need not be in English but must include an English translation. Specific guidelines for submissions can be found online. Also listed online are style guidelines.

Works must be unpublished online or in print in North America. Sinister Wisdom takes first North American serial rights.

The editor of Sinister Wisdom is Julie R. Enszer (julie@sinisterwisdom.org). The team for this special issue includes Leonne Tanis, a midwife and reproductive health practitioner in New York City; Drewe Haddox, an artist and abortion doula in Detroit; Izzy Nunez, a Colorado eco-lesbian, and Margaret Zanmiller, a lesbian writer in Minnesota.

Questions about the Repro J issue can be directed to Tanis at otherwisecnm@gmail.com.

Sinister Wisdom, a nonprofit organization, describes its mission "to create multi-class, multicultural, multi-gender, multi-racial, world-wide intergenerational queer and lesbian spaces." In addition to quarterly issues, it has a Sapphic Classics book series, a yearly calendar, a bi-weekly newsletter, online discussions, a book club, issue launches, discussions with authors, and provides free subscriptions to women in prison and mental institutions, and reduced price to lesbians and queer women with limited incomes. and educational program. "Sinister Wisdom is a living archive that celebrates the multiplicity of lesbian identities across races, classes, genders, abilities, and lived experiences. Sinister Wisdom recognizes the power of language and art to create radical, empowering, resilient, and joyous sanctuaires that build and sustain vibrant lesbian futures."

Past issues of Sinister Wisdom from 1976-1996 can be viewed online at Reveal Digital, Independent Voices/LGBT. (See our prior blog for details about this digital library.)

In addition, Sinister Wisdom has a database accessed on this page of each issue from 1 to 126 and the writers in it, and the ability to download a pdf of issues from 1976 to 2012. Biweekly newsletters can also be accessed online.

DETAILS of SINISTER WOMEN, REPRO JUSTICE AND LESBIANISM:

-Reproductive Justice and Lesbianism Call for Works: https://www.sinisterwisdom.org/ReproductiveJustice, deadline March 31, 2026
-Inquiries about Reproductive Justice Issue: Leonne Tanis: otherwisecnm@gmail.com
-Sinister Wisdom Website sinisterwisdom.org
-Sinister Wisdom YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/SinisterWisdom
-Sinister Wisdom Instagram @sinister_wisdom
-Sinister Wisdom Facebook: facebook.com/SinisterWisdom

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: Sinister Wisdom website, archive screenshot

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

X: @ChoiceTheater @ReproJWalk
Instagram: @ReproFreedomArts
Website: www.reprofreedomarts.org

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Three Videos Show Abortion Challenges in Nigeria, India, Poland

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 08:26:00 +0000

Three fact-driven videos from three continents demonstrate the continuing battles on abortion access around the world. They also reverberate uncomfortably with post-Dobbs experiences in the U.S.

From Nigeria, India and Poland, the three videos describe the challenges that pregnant patients encounter. Each country poses a different set of obstacles, and yet they are united by their agonizing harm to pregnant people and their abusive control of women.

Nigerian Film Seeks Abortion Protections

“The Silent Crisis: The Impact of Unsafe Abortions on Women and Girls in Nigeria,” viewable on YouTube, was released by IRISE working with Amplify Change.

Described as an ‘AI-powered’ video, the four-minute selection explains the harrowing effects of unsafe abortions comparable to ‘back alley’ abortions in the U.S. The voices of health-care professionals call for the implementation of Safe Termination of Pregnancy -- or STOP -- Guidelines to prevent unnecessary deaths.

Nigeria has a high number of deaths from unsafe abortion – accounting for up to 40 percent of maternal deaths, according to advocates.

The STOP Guidelines provide clear direction for health professionals on the safe termination of pregnancy in limited circumstances such as to save the life of a pregnant woman and to preserve her health. They were passed in June 2022 in Lagos but were suspended almost immediately because of anti-abortion objections. The end result left healthcare providers and women “in limbo,” one article notes.

“Policies that limit abortion access do not eliminate abortions; they only push them underground, making them more unsafe. Abortion is not just a moral or legal issue -- it is a public health emergency. Restrictive policies do not save lives; they cost lives,” the article says.

In the video by IRISE a narrator describes the health landscape as the screen shows a series of images of Nigeria, women, and healthcare settings. Medical professionals then describe the unsettling consequences of unsafe abortion. “The suspension of the STOP Guidelines has left health care providers unable to offer safe and legal services to those most in need. Without these guidelines, women are driven to unsafe alternatives, facing irreversible harm,” one says.

People interested in using the video should contact: : iriseinitiative077@gmail.com. Watch Silent Crisis here.

India: End Stigma, Expand Law

Barkha Dutt

A four-minute video segment from India narrated by the award-winning journalist and TV anchor Barkha Dutt challenges the ongoing stigmatization of abortion even though abortion has been legal in the country for half a century. The video, while first released several years ago, offers an important example for people across the globe on how to address stigma.

Called ‘My Body, My Choice,’ (embedded below and viewable here), the video was originally part of a combined campaign by Asia Safe Abortion Partnership, Family Planning Association of India, India HIV/AIDS Alliance, Global Health Strategies, We The Women and Youth Ki Awaaz to raise awareness about safe abortion care.

More than 15 million women access abortion care in India each year, according to narrator Dutt. But nearly 4,000 women die each year of unsafe abortions due to misinformation and misdirection.

The problem, Dutt states, is that once abortion was legalized in 1971“we never really had a campaign to tell women that you are entitled to safe legal abortions in this country.” Studies show that forty percent of women don't know abortion is legal, she says.

Abortion is treated with disdain in popular storytelling and several clips are dissected for their misogyny. Stigma-inducing myths cloud people's understanding of abortion, the video says, especially a refrain that it is used for sex selection. Eighty-one percent of abortions take place within the first seven weeks of a pregnancy when the sex of the fetus is not known, Dutt explains, and 90 percent of abortions have nothing to do with sex selection. “Remember the right to a legal abortion is every woman's right,” she concludes.

In 2021, one year before the U.S. entered its current post-Dobbs regression, India passed a new law to expand abortion access with the passage of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Amendment Act of 2021. The new legislation is designed to “further empower women by providing comprehensive abortion care to all.”

See the embedded clip below or watch My Body, My Choice here.

Poland: Abortion Ban and Hardship

A 30-minute magazine-style TV story by ARTE Europe takes a look at the abortion crisis in Poland.

“Re: Polish Women Fight for Abortion” is a sophisticated production, taking viewers right to key voices and issues surrounding a ban on abortion in Poland.

Although abortion was once legal in Poland, heavily influenced by conservative Catholicism, it now has the most restrictive laws in Europe.

ARTE reports on several women who are at the center of the storm.

The story begins with Dr. Maria Kubisa, an ob-gyn doctor whose office was raided by government agents in 2023.

Dr. Maria Kubisa

"I was ambushed by armed officers," Dr. Kubisa says. "They burst into my office, threw patients out of the waiting room, and started tearing through everything." They took laptops, a cell phone and the medical records of 6,000 patients.

The current Polish law permits abortion only when the woman’s life is at risk, or when the pregnancy is the result of rape. Doctors can face up to three years in prison if they are found to provide an abortion that is not sanctioned by the narrow limits of the law; many have stopped offering abortion care altogether rather than face police intervention.

The second woman introduced in the ARTE video is a conservative anti-abortion lawyer and campaigner. Filmed at several meetings and panels, she insists that life begins at the moment of conception and that “abortion is never an option at all.”

Next, the filmmakers bring the viewers to Joanna P., a woman arrested for taking abortion pills. She describes how she was arrested after mentioning to a mental health professional that she had taken abortion pills. “It’s simply a witch hunt in this country,” she says. Joanna meets up with an activist, originally from Ukraine, who had an abortion after being raped.

ARTE follows her as she meets with women who are displaced by the war in Ukraine.

The video closes with the journey that some woman must take to cross the border into Germany to get an abortion.

“Polish Women Fight for Abortion,” released in summer 2025, can be viewed online (with English subtitles) through early 2026, here.

Below: My Body, My Choice with Barkha Dutt

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: YouTube screenshots

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

X: @ChoiceTheater @ReproJWalk
Instagram: @ReproFreedomArts
Website: www.reprofreedomarts.org

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WANTED! Special Postal Inspector for 19th Century Abortion Job!

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 06:05:00 +0000

Apply NOW! Special US Postal Inspector for 19th Century Abortion Job! by Angela Bonavoglia

As our century's first-ever Special Agent of the U.S. Postal Service, you'll be the enforcer of the 150-year-old Comstock Act that is still on the books and more relevant than ever!

The mutton-chopped, vice-hunting Comstock got Congress to criminalize mailing anything abortion-related and to authorize him to open other people's mail, tote a gun, and make arrests. As Comstock's successor, you'll be the man to lead a holy crusade against the abortion, aka murder pills, and the escalating number of sinners who want them!

Working with an army of other specially trained mailmen, you'll have the authority to:

-- Create the first-ever database of the nation's menstruators! You'll dig into women's period trackers, social media accounts, and emails for incriminating evidence of their pregnancy plans! You'll dive into the growing supply of state records to find the women who already had abortions and might kill again!

-- Root through women's trash for evidence of period-interruptus! Using your database, you'll methodically monitor all their bloody supplies …we know, yuk. But we also know, when the bleeding stops, the trouble starts. That's your target list. Now, you might see her around -- gardening, taking the kids to school, shopping, and think, she seems nice, like a good mother. DO NOT BE FOOLED! Any woman at any time can become a baby killer!

-- Break into those mailboxes! Shake packages! Tear open envelopes! If you find the murder pills, BRAVO! Intercept them! No one "needs" murder pills! Don't believe what you hear -- that she "needs" them because she just "can’t bear" to carry a "rapist's" baby! Because her doctor told her that another pregnancy could "kill" her! It’s all malarkey! She'll manage; and if she doesn't, well, that's God’s will. Remember, you do what you do to save innocent lives! And let's face it: she was never innocent.

-- Arrest the suppliers! Did the pills come from a doctor? A clinic? The boat ladies floating on international waters? A relative, a friend? (If it's a man, forget it. He's been duped -- it's not his fault). You get to travel FREE anywhere, by any means (piggyback on a nice vacation?) to track down the source! If you need help, call the cops -- they're your partners! Request a SWAT team! Make as many arrests as possible -- Comstock made thousands over his 42-year career! Don't be shy! Like Comstock, you'll make some wrongful arrests and there will be suicides, but those mishaps are nothing compared to all of the early pregnancy tissue you will preserve!

-- Get creative! Like your namesake, you'll be authorized to draft decoy letters with false signatures! Posing as a barely pregnant woman (pills only work up to the 12th week, so hurry up!), you'll write to medical providers or, better yet, her close relatives or friends, begging for their help getting access to the pills. If you're successful and find the pills in her mailbox, BRAVO again! Intercept, arrest, convict, imprison! The supplier is her mother? Who cares! No one is above the law.

Sammy Alito loves the Comstock Act! So does Clarence T! So do the three state Attorneys General (Kansas, Missouri, Idaho) who filed a do-over lawsuit to outlaw the mailing of the abortion pills, using the Comstock Act! It's a case that the Supremes' -- compliments of 45 and now, 47 -- are sure to green-light!

Freedom, power, job security -- sound good to you? If so, send your resume to us at stopthosesluts.com! DO IT NOW! Be the godly man we know you are!

Angela Bonavoglia is a NYC-based author and journalist. Her works include the books 'The Choices We Made: 25 Women and Men Speak Out About Abortion' and 'Good Catholic Girls: How Women Are Leading the Fight to Change the Church,' as well as many articles and essays in Ms., NY Daily News, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, Salon, Newsday, Women’s Media Center and Huffington Post. https://www.angelabonavoglia.com/

Read a blog about the history of the Comstock Law and listen to actors reading the text

Images: Open Source

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

X: @ChoiceTheater @ReproJWalk
Instagram: @ReproFreedomArts
Website: www.reprofreedomarts.org

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ReproEco Virtual Theater: Writing About Toxins, Then Real Life

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 01:03:00 +0000

Writing About Something and Then It Happens

by Laura Shamas

I'll never forget speaking with artistic activist Cindy Cooper about her initial ideas for a theater project about the intersection of reproductive freedom and environmental justice.

It was in Autumn 2023. The project, ReproEco, would involve several women writers from across the country. I believe Cindy and I spoke for 90 minutes that day!

My mind was swimming afterwards. There was so much to consider -- so many things to learn about, all of which were worthy of dramatizing for the stage. Cindy’s idea of how all the writers in the cohort would learn more about these issues was so innovative: we’d learn and review together.

As a group, we’d would listen to experts on Zoom on a weekly basis for a few months. We’d build a library of information. (Read more about this unique process in a blog post by playwright Mildred Inez Lewis.)

The six ReproEco writers are Diane Breeser, Cindy Cooper, Alinca Hamilton, Mildred Inez Lewis, Cassandra Medley and me.

When I wrote my short ReproEco play Priorities in May 2024, I tried to highlight as many issues as I could as part of the intersection of environmental and reproduction issues, with an eye to the future: PFA’s, wildfire foam, landfill proximity, lead present in water, pesticide exposure, and Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals. How will this affect us through generations?

by Laura Shamas, near her home in CA

Little did I know that by January 7, 2025, my own home would be part of a large megafire disaster area in Los Angeles. I’d see firsthand the toxic effect of burn areas in my own town. Watching Priorities now certainly has traumatic resonance for me -- and underscores how necessary it is for us to make changes in lifestyles today.

My short play, Priorities, is set in a dystopian future. The setting is “perpetually autumn.” In our own village in Los Angeles right now, many months after the megafire, we see: dark, blackened trees; chimneys representing remnants of destroyed homes; metal staircases that lead nowhere; mostly bare, empty lots where family homes used to be -- you can see the Santa Monica Mountains clearly because nothing blocks them. Dystopia has arrived.

Friends who see the disaster area for the first time tell me it reminds them of a war zone, and it goes on for miles and miles, up through Malibu. Whenever I see firefighters here, I worry about their futures -- and ours.

Virtual Production Shares the Plays Nationwide

Our next showing of “ReproEco” is virtual, produced by Transformation Theatre on Tuesday, October 14, at 7 p.m. EDT (4 pm Pacific).

Because the six playwrights live in different parts of the U.S. (New York, Wisconsin, California), this will be the first time we’ll view the same performance and participate in the same post-show discussion at the same time.

Laura Shamas (photo:Stephanie Girard)

With the directors, dramaturgs, and actors, too, I’m really looking forward to a rousing developmental discussion -- and a chance to admire the five other shows in performance. For ReproEco, there will be a virtual post-show discussion lead by our dramaturgs on camera and in the chat section afterwards.

We live in a time of chaos and confusion in the United States. I’m so proud of be a part of the ReproEco team, especially now, in Fall 2025.

Our plays are strong statements, and I’m certain that audiences will find the ReproEco virtual evening to be provocative, illuminating, and inspiring in terms of “next steps” to solve some of this.

We are not powerless. Change is possible. Let’s try.

The ReproEco Plays:

We Are Our Ancestors Reasons for Living by Cassandra Medley. Directed by Shanea Taylor. Dramaturgy by Kajoree Bhattacharya. Starring A'lisa D. Miles, Pernell Walker, Kimberly Fairbanks, and Jada Owens.

Priorities by Laura Shamas. Directed by Carly Bodnar. Dramaturgy by Victoria Estes. Starring Kimberly Fairbanks, Pernell Walker, and Harriette Feliz.

Maybe Our Baby by Diane Breeser. Directed by Shanea Taylor. Dramaturgy by Kajoree Bhattacharya. Starring A'lisa D. Miles, Harriette Feliz, Olivia Harden, and Alfie Antillon.

Through Water Into Blood by Mildred Inez Lewis. Directed by Carly Bodnar. Dramaturgy by Victoria Estes. Starring Thomasin Savaiano, Olivia Harden, and Alfie Antillon.

Always Never Really Here by Alinca Hamilton. Directed by Shanea Taylor. Dramaturgy by Kajoree Bhattacharya. Starring Kimberly Fairbanks, and Jada Owens.

Until The Change Comes by Cindy Cooper. Directed by Carly Bodnar. Dramaturgy by Victoria Estes. Starring Jada Owens, Thomasin Savaiano and Harriette Feliz.

Details:
ReproEco Virtual Presentation, Transformation Theatre, Oct 14, 7 pm ET; 4 pm Pacific
Transformation Theatre Website
Meet the ReproEco Virtual Creative Team
Buy Tickets

More About ReproEco:
About ReproEco on ReproFreedomArts Website
Facebook invite; Instagram

Laura Shamas is a writer who lives in Los Angeles. She is a Chickasaw Nation citizen.

Images: Transformation Theatre, Laura Shamas

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

X: @ChoiceTheater @ReproJWalk
Instagram: @ReproFreedomArts
Website: www.reprofreedomarts.org

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Documentary: An Abortion Clinic Staffer Grapples with Protesters

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Sat, 27 Sep 2025 21:42:00 +0000

A new half-hour documentary film takes audience members to a day-in-the-life experience of an abortion clinic today in the post-Dobbs landscape.

The Devil Is Busy tells the clinic experience from the point-of-view of the workers on-site. Especially featured is the operations manager, Tracii, who is charged with overseeing security and protecting the safety of clinic guests and staff, including from aggressive anti-abortion protesters.

Subtitled, A Day on the Frontlines of Women's Healthcare, the film was shot at the Feminist Center for Reproductive Liberation in Atlanta.

The clinic and patients coming to it experience daily harassment from anti-abortion zealots who stand outside and use bullhorns to scream at patients and staff. Because the clinic is set on a hill above the road, Tracii advises patients to drive on through the crowd, and then she greets them at the top with the simple words, 'You're safe now.'

In the process, audience members hear Tracii's story. The film also follows other clinic staffers, from the people who answer the phone to those who provide healthcare.

Throughout, audience members see the continuing harassment by anti-abortion people who accost people coming to the healthcare facility.

The movie (trailer embedded below) is directed by Geeta Gandbhir and Christalyn Hampton; Soledad O'Brien is the executive producer along with Rose Marie Arce and producer Amber M. Fares.

In a statement on Film Freeway, the directors described how they had been collecting a large amount of footage at clinics post-Dobbs, looking for the right way to tell the story of what clinics and patients were facing, when they began to focus on Tracii.

"Tracii is a deeply religious and humble woman who is fiercely committed to women’s healthcare. While seemingly adjacent to what’s happening inside the clinic, she is actually a last line of defense between a world of vulnerable women being treated by embattled doctors and the protestors' politics outside that got us to where we are today. You can hear her praying on tape while you hear the emboldened protestors weaponizing religion in a way they know will create emotional pain. We decided that a day with Tracii about a year after the loss of abortion rights was a window into the new reality ..." the director's statement says.

The release of the The Devil is Busy coincides with an anti-abortion campaign called 40 Days of Life, which calls for anti-abortion people to double down on harassment at clinics, Jessica Valenti, Abortion Every Day warned abortion rights advocates about these horrific campaigns on Instagram, and urged people to "take care of each other."

The film is also a poignant reminder of the need for buffer zones and the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, known as the FACE Act, passed in1994. According to the National Abortion Federation (NAF), which tracks violence at clinics, anti-abortion extremists have felt emboldened in the post-Dobbs terrain. NAF found a spike in major incidents of threats and violence against abortion providers.

"Anti-abortion extremists continue to perpetrate high levels of violence and harassment against abortion providers, including arsons, obstructions, assaults, constant picketing, death threats, and other activities meant to intimidate and terrorize abortion providers.

"Even with clinics closing in states that have banned or restricted access to abortion, extremists are traveling—or even moving—to states where abortion remains legal. There, they protest, intimidate, harass, and even attack abortion providers to interfere with people’s access to abortion care," NAF reports.

Upon taking office, the current president actually issued pardons to the 23 people who had been convicted of FACE violations. In addition, as described by the Center for Reproductive Rights, a bill was introduced in Congress to repeal the FACE Act altogether.

Some U.S. Representatives demanded that the Justice Department increase FACE enforcement while states like New York are seeking to expand buffer zones around clinics to prohibit protestors from menacing people at close range.

The Devil Is Busy, which aired on HBOMax in September 2025, can be viewed on HBO and Hulu.

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images:The Devil is Busy PR, screenshots

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

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ReproEco Joins UN Healing Arts Week for Sept Events

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 17:18:00 +0000

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) is supporting the Healing Arts Week with events and community engagements across New York City, and ReproEco: Six Short Plays with Dance is part of this uplifting endeavor.

The Healing Arts Week is being launched by the Jameel Arts and Health Lab in collaboration with WHO (World Health Organization). The fourth week of September will be a celebration of arts and health during the 80th Session of the UN General Assembly.

ReproEco:Six Short Plays with Dance, coproduced by ReproFreedomArts.org and MultiStages, a multicultural, multidisciplinary theater company, connects reproductive health and environmental justice, and it is a partner event of the Healing Arts Week.

The ReproEco performances at CultureLab LIC in Long Island City, Queens, will present six short plays on September 19 (7:00 pm) and September 20 (3:30 pm).

Written by commissioned playwrights Diane Breeser, Cindy Cooper, Alinca Hamilton, Mildred Inez Lewis, Cassandra Medley and Laura Shamas, the plays are directed by Lorca Peress, also the artistic director of MultiStages, and Allison Astor-Vargas. Interwoven with the plays are three dances choreographed by Jennifer Chin.

The Jameel Arts and Health Lab is "a global initiative to measurably improve health and wellbeing through the arts," according to its website. The project draws upon scientific evidence and artist-led advocacy to build the role of the arts in healthcare.

A short launch video of Jameel created by its partner Culturerunners, a London-based communications group, offers a glance at the intentions of the program -- to amplify and strengthen the role of the arts in improving people's lives and health, using rigorous scholarship, measurement tools, case studies, policy outreach and opportunities for people from arts and health to connect and network.

Jameel promotes "the transformative power of the arts in improving physical, mental and social health on a global scale," writes Culturerunners.

Jameel Arts and Health UNGA Week

In pursuing arts and health, Jameel has created several areas of special interest, and ReproEco: Six Short Plays with Dance, focusing on reproductive health and the environment, aligns with more than one. ReproEco falls readily within the Jameel platform on Arts, Health and Climate, as well as "Arts and Health Equity" and "Arts and Health Ethics."(Other areas that Jameel studies are on arts and neuroscience, mental health, noncommunicable diseases, and hospital environments.) ReproEco also shares Jameel's goal of supporting marginalized and overlooked communities.

The Arts, Health, and Climate project of Jameel states that climate change and health are "two complex challenges that are closely interwoven. Statements like 'the climate crisis is a health crisis,' have become increasingly common." Jameel is examining how arts engagement can affect the mitigation and prevention of health risks posed by climate change.

ReproEco Partners in Healing Arts Week

ReproEco artists and consultants

The trajectory of ReproEco and the six plays developed in the ReproEco project make a good fit with the Healing Arts Week. ReproEco began in 2024 with a series of conversations between the commissioned writers and experts in reproductive justice, health and rights and in environmental health, law and justice.

The writers, from a wide variety of backgrounds, were also able to draw upon a custom-built virtual library of materials. It is from this research and collaborative discussions that each imagined and shaped their own short plays, drawing upon their own styles and sensibilities, a process described in a blog by writer Mildred Lewis.

Presented together, the ReproEco plays form a mosaic of the reproductive health and broader health concerns people face from climate change and environmental damage. The plays reflect upon the effects of toxins; health access; the need for clean air, water and earth; forever chemicals; ethics; gender; advocacy, and especially the deepest hopes of humans for bodily autonomy and bodily integrity -- all expressed through the power of storytelling.

Added to the presentations during Healing Arts Week are three original dance pieces, interwoven with the six plays, and choreographed by Jennifer Chin with original music by Sun Hee Kil.

All of the plays will be performed together as staged readings at CultureLab LIC on two dates -- September 19 at 7 pm and September 20 at 3:30 pm during the citywide UNGA Healing Arts Week.

The plays are:

Maybe Our Baby by Diane Breeser: A pregnant woman has a comical nightmare about an article on forever chemicals she read while in the doctor’s waiting room.

Until the Change Comes by Cindy Cooper: A branding team begins to question their work after a visit from Theo Colborn, a woman scientist from years gone by who first identified toxic endocrine disrupters.

Always Never Really Here by Alinca Hamilton: A mother and daughter, face the harsh realities of living without clean running water in the verifiably real town of Sand Branch, Texas.

Through Water Into Blood by Mildred Inez Lewis: After a devastating miscarriage, a West Virginia woman confronts her birth doula and they both realize the role toxic chemicals may have played.

Joyce Griffen, Abigail Ramsay
We Are Our Ancestors’ Reasons for Living by Cassandra Medley: In an Afro-futurism style, intergenerational women experience an altered world in which nature is so degraded that the out-of-doors must be delivered and enjoyed virtually.

Priorities by Laura Shamas: In a dystopian future, two gynecologists and a midwife meet in secret to prioritize the needs of their pregnant patients, so they can escape to a better environment.

Performing in the readings are: Gena Bardwell, Jean Brookner, Jolie Cloutier, Joyce Griffen, Nina Mehta, Valorie Niccore, Abigail Ramsay, Laura Riveros-Sefair, Celeste Sena and Donnell E. Smith.

Three dance selections, Breath, Rage and Women's Trio, will feature dancers Adele Carlson, Jennifer Chin and Maya Lam.

Jennifer Chin

The Sept 19-20 performances of ReproEco: Six Short Plays with Dance are presented in collaboration with CultureLab LIC and with support from The Puffin Foundation. Both performances are free with a reservation.

ReproEco previously had well-received performances in Manhattan at the Goddard Riverside Arts Center, at five venues in La Crosse, Wisconsin, as well as solo presentations at the Puffin Foundation Brooklyn and the Ghostlight Collective.

Some comments from audience members: Brava! The ReproEco play series was excellent!//Really profound and thought-provoking.//Each writer took a different angle, which allowed me to really think about the whole subject from so many perspectives.//This was exceptional.//My friend and I talked about it nonstop on the way home. Such a beautiful use of theater.//Powerful funny heartfelt stories.//A galvanizing experience!

Other Healing Arts Events

The UNGA Healing Arts Week, held on the sidelines of the 80th Session of the UN General Assembly, features a series of high-profile events, along with performances in every borough that show the powerful role of culture and creativity in advancing health priorities.

Events bring together artists, healthcare leaders and policymakers, and communities to explore art, health and innovation. They include: photo-essay launch at the Guggenheim Museum, research symposium at NYU Steinhardt, a workshop on arts and civic health at the Public Theater, an arts and health economics roundtable, a Wellbeing Concert at Carnegie Hall (video), a letter-writing workshop, and a film screening at Juilliard, More details on all of the events are on the Healing Arts Week website.

Details:
ReproEco: Six Short Plays with Dance at CultureLab LIC -- Healing Arts Week
Readings of six plays with dance by Jennifer Chin
Plays by Diane Breeser, Cindy Cooper, Alinca Hamilton, Mildred Inez Lewis, Cassandra Medley and Laura Shamas
Sept 19 (7 pm) and Sept 20 (3:30 pm)
Culture Lab LIC, 5-25 46th Ave., Long Island City Queens 11101
Co-produced by ReproFreedomArts.org and MultiStages
Free with Reservation: https://tinyurl.com/66npdjfm https://www.healingartsnewyork.org/events

Healing Arts Week New York
UNGA Healing Arts Website:https://www.healingartsnewyork.org/
Events: https://www.healingartsnewyork.org/events
Jameel Arts and Health Lab https://www.jameelartshealthlab.org/
Insta: https://www.jameelartshealthlab.org/Healing Arts Week

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: Jameel Arts and Health Lab, ReproEco

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

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Reproductive and Environmental Justice Come Alive In Storytelling

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Sat, 30 Aug 2025 01:09:00 +0000

With catastrophes appearing daily on TV and in the papers, many people have slashed their news diet -- understandably so.

But here is where art and storytelling fill the gap. Storytelling allows people to absorb information in profoundly different ways than the news. And the arts can offer people an opportunity to refresh, while still keeping them engaged.

The crosscurrents between art and social justice are at the heart of a September 6 (6 pm) event at PuffinBrooklyn on how we can embrace storytelling about the intersectional topics of reproductive freedom and environmental justice.

This unique event will have a discussion about the genesis of the ReproEco project with Cindy Cooper of ReproFreedomArts.org, writer Alinca Hamilton, and activist Trae Banuelos, executive director of the Abortion Conversations Project. To show how it can all come together, the discussion will be accompanied by a reading of Always Never Really Here, a short new play by Hamilton.

Alinca Hamilton

ReproEco, a project of ReproFreedomArts.org, began with the idea of filling in a gap in storytelling about the connections between reproductive freedom and environmental justice. Six diverse playwrights were commissioned and embarked on a collective artistic investigation. Each then wrote a short play. The writers are Diane Breeser (WI), Mildred Inez Lewis (CA) Cassandra Medley (NY) and Laura Shamas (CA), along with Hamilton (NY) and Cooper (NY).

The artistic investigations with experts and artists provided insights. While reproductive and environmental justice are each complex topics and are intertwined in multiple ways, they are generally addressed in separate silos. The true impact on human lives is where storytelling becomes added gold -- the stories put people and context in the frame.

"The group spent several months sharing and discussing scholarly papers and newspaper articles, before developing individual plays. Invited experts offered their thinking and analysis via Zoom conversations.The process was essentially old-fashioned consciousness-raising," wrote Mildred Inez Lewis, one of the writers, in Theatrical Readings Uplift Artistic Investigations on ReproEco.

In one of those Zoom conversations, Banuelos described reproductive justice, as first defined by Sistersong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective in the 1990s. Reproductive justice means the ability of people to decide whether or not to bear a child, to be able to raise children and to live in a safe and healthy environment; bodily autonomy is key.

Environmental justice, as defined by We Act, means that all people should have equitable access to a healthy, sustainable, and resilient environment; bodily integrity is at its core.

Sistersong notes, "The intersectionality of RJ (Reproductive Justice) is both an opportunity and a call to come together as one movement with the power to win freedom for all oppressed people."

The arts have a critical role in doing that. PBS Learning Media writes, "Throughout history, art has been used as an accessible tool for communication, raising awareness about social issues and affecting positive change."

Alinca Hamilton's Always Never Really Here, developed in the ReproEco project, is short play about a mother and daughter making their way in a real-life community in the US today where no one has access to water. The reading at PuffinBrooklyn features Gena Bardwell and Hamilton; Lorca Peress, the Artistic Director of MultiStages in New York, directs.

Hamilton became interested in the subject after hearing Dr. Jacqui Patterson, one of the speakers in the ReproEco artistic investigations. Among other things, Dr. Patterson described the work of her organization, the Chisholm Legacy Project, in Sandbranch, Texas, a town that has for over a decade been without water. The play addresses the subject not through fact sheets or speeches, but through the tender push-and-pull of an African-American mother who is the town's leading advocate for water and her teen daughter who wants nothing more than to go to college far away from the community.

Trae Banuelos

Following the reading of the play, Trae Banuelos will talk about the importance of the arts to social justice. The Abortion Conversations Project, where Banuelos is the executive director, has long supported people working on reproductive justice to create and display art, poetry, theater and more.

PuffinBrooklyn, a new gallery space opened by The Puffin Foundation, is a perfect setting for this conversation about arts and social justice. The foundation supports social activism and provides grants to artists "who are often excluded from mainstream opportunities due to their identities or social philosophies." The plan for the Brooklyn space, opened in spring 2025, is to offer art, intimate performances and meetings of community organizations.

The arts may be especially important in dark times. That's what the Nobel-prizing winning writer Toni Morrison wrote in The Nation in 2016, three years before her death.

Recalling a friend who roused her to action after the election that year, Morrison wrote: "This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal."

"I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence."

ReproEco will be continuing the conversation later in September, as well. MultiStages and ReproFreedom Arts are co-producing all six plays on a single program on September 19 (7 pm) and September 20 (3:30 pm) in ReproEco: Six Short Plays with Dance at CultureLab LIC, 5-25 46th Ave., Long Island City, New York 11101 (right across the East River from Manhattan).

CultureLab LIC is also collaborating on presentations. In addition, the ReproEco presentations are designated as UNGA (United Nations General Assembly) adjunct activities for the Healing Arts Week in connection with WHO and Jameel Health and Arts at NYU.

The Healing Arts Week, held on the sidelines of the 80th Session of the UN General Assembly, is described as "a dynamic program of events celebrating innovative approaches to global health and well-being through the arts." It includes theater, film screenings, policy roundtables and community events in all five boroughs.

Details:

Intersections: Reproductive and Environmental Justice Through Storytelling
September 6 (6 pm)
Discussion with ReproEco, Cindy Cooper, and Trae Banuelos, Abortion Conversations Project
Reading of Almost Never Really Here by Alinca Hamilton, with Alinca Hamilton, Gena Rowland, directed by Lorca Peress
PuffinBrooklyn
227 5th Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11215
Between Union and Carroll Streets
Free! Reserve: https://intersections.eventbrite.com/

ReproEco: Six Short Plays with Dance at CultureLab LIC
Readings of six plays with dance by Jennifer Chin
Plays by Diane Breeser, Cindy Cooper, Alinca Hamilton, Mildred Inez Lewis, Cassandra Medley and Laura Shamas
Sept 19 (7 pm) and Sept 20 (3:30 pm)
Culture Lab LIC, 5-25 46th Ave., Long Island City Queens 11101
Co-produced by ReproFreedomArts.org and MultiStages
Free with Reservation: https://tinyurl.com/66npdjfm

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images:ReproEco, Puffin Foundation, Alinca Hamilton

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

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Streaming: Zurawski Film Shows Devastation From Abortion Ban

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 06:33:00 +0000

Zurawski v. Texas, an important film on the harrowing situations that people with pregnancy complications can face under abortion bans, is now available for streaming, allowing for personal and in-home viewing on demand.

Co-directed and produced by two filmmakers with deep experience on reproductive rights, Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault, the documentary follows the real-life journeys of women whose pregnancies and lives were endangered by a post-Dobbs abortion ban in Texas. Released in mid-2024, the film scored 20 film awards and has had dozens of festival screenings.

Now, Zurawski v. Texas is available for viewing on major streaming platforms, including Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, GooglePlay/YouTube, and Jolt.

The film, as shown on the trailer (embedded below), challenges abortion bans in the U.S. with by showing the real-life consequences to wanted pregnancies that go awry. The cameras follow in meticulous detail a lawsuit brought by three women, challenging the state abortion ban after they experience damage from the denial of abortion care in the midst of devastating pregnancy complications.

Amanda Zurawski is possibly one of the best known of the stories in the film. In her 18th week of a wanted pregnancy in 2022, Zurawski's water broke as she experienced preterm pre-labor rupture of membranes (PPROM). Living in Austin, her doctors knew that her pregnancy was not viable, but because the fetus had cardiac activity, she was denied a medically necessary abortion under the state's post-Roe abortion ban. Within three days, she ended up in the emergency room with life-threatening septic shock, and while she survived, her reproductive organs were permanently damaged.

She went on to share her story publicly and become the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit brought by attorney Molly Duane at the Center for Reproductive Rights. All told, 20 women with equally devastating stories become plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The film tells the stories of two others -- Samantha Casiano and Dr. Austin Dennard. Casiano, from East Texas, learned that her fetus had anencephaly and would not survive at 20 weeks. She was forced to continue the pregnancy, knowing it was doomed, and despite the mental and physical suffering she encountered. The baby was delivered and died four hours later. Dennard, a Dallas resident, found out at 11 weeks that her baby had anencephaly. An obstetrician, she knew the condition was not compatible with survival and was forced to travel out of state to get the medical care she needed.

The film follows the decisions the women make to sue as they use their personal stories to try to get the law changed. Viewers watch them prepare for the case, and then, going inside the courtroom, give testimony on the stand. Eventually, the case goes to the Texas Supreme Court, which is not sympathetic.

Reviewer Jourdain Searles wrote in IndieWire: “‘Zurawski v Texas’ is a film about America itself and the governmental failings that have brought us to this moment.... This urgent and necessary documentary makes plain the obvious evil of an uncaring government that insists on gaining full control of the bodies of its people, unmoved by the pain that follows."

According to the Guttmacher Institute, Texas is one of 12 states that has a total abortion ban; another four have extensive bans that apply after six weeks of pregnancy.

Despite the defeat, Zurawski and others refuse to give up. They continue to explain publicly how abortion bans are hurting people like themselves, with wanted pregnancies.

Executive directors on the film include Jennifer Lawrence, Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Justine Ciarrocchi, Bari Lurie, Johnny Webb, Linda Himelstein, Laurie Michaels and Amy Metzler Ritter.

Co-executive Producers: Lisa and Jeffrey Akin, Suzanne Lerner, Emily Liu Foy, Cristina Ljungberg, Nancy Mcgregor And Neal Manne, Gretchen Sisson, Amanda Stephens, Jacob And Terese Hershey Foundation, The Boone Family Foundation.

In addition to Crowe and Perrault, producers include Amy Flanagan, Siobhan Sinnerton, Blye Pagon Faust and Cori Shepherd.

More details on Zurawski v. Texas

Website: https://www.zurawskivtexas.com

Streaming platforms: https://togetherfilms.org/blog/zurawski-v-texas-now-streaming-challenging-oppressive-abortion-laws-in-the-u-s/

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: Screenshot, Zurawski

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

X: @ChoiceTheater @ReproJWalk
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Winning Plays on Reproductive Justice Take Center Stage in NY

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 21:36:00 +0000

by guest writer Cynthia Nuara, A is For

One night. Three plays. All about reproductive justice.

A is For presented the 2025 all it takes is ONE ACT Play Festival featuring readings of the three winning one-acts from our fourth playwriting contest. The event in New York City was hosted in late June at the off-Broadway theatre Playwrights Horizons, which donated the Judith O. Rubin Theater in support of the A is For mission to bring art about abortion to the stage.

The three winning plays were Safe House (third place) by Kendall Grenolds; All the Things She Never Said (second place) by Sophie Goldstein, and Getting Attached (first place) by A.M. Palson.

A is For was conceived in 2012 by actors Martha Plimpton, Kellie Overbey and Gina Loukareas. We work at the intersection of the arts and social justice, amplifying art and artists that work to end stigma against abortion. We envision a world in which every person has access to the full spectrum of reproductive healthcare free from judgment, scrutiny and obstruction. Through our creative initiatives, we seek to elevate the human experience of of abortion.

The three winning plays were selected from 512 submissions from writers who responded to a call for plays in the fall 2024.

Safe House by Kendall Grenolds is about the people who come and go at a safe house in New Mexico, as they cross state lines to get reproductive care. When a new arrival’s past is revealed, the entire house is jeopardized as a brutal question is asked: how much responsibility must we take for laws we didn’t pass?

All the Things She Never Said by Sophie Goldstein is set in present day Los Angeles. Sisters Lupita and Mari are cleaning out the house of their recently deceased mother, Monse. As they go through boxes, they discover that she was part of the Madrigal 10, a group of Latina women who sued the LA County Medical Center in 1978 for committing forced sterilization.

First-place winner Getting Attached by A.M. Palson tells the story of Max, who has traveled for miles to see the octopuses at a small marine lab in Florida, only to find that one of the octopuses has died. Sara, a lab technician, tries to explain that it’s natural and beautiful for female octopuses to die after laying their eggs. Max isn’t buying it. Together, the duo navigates questions of motherhood, biology, and gender through their mutual love and fascination with octopuses, exploring the feelings of biological betrayal and the human need for care.

The readings this year were directed by Claire Karpen and the plays were read by a cast of performers that included Isa Arraiza, b, Anthony Crane, Florencia Lozano, Maria-Christina Oliveras, Emma Pfitzer Price, Gabriela Torres, Daniel Velez, and Hennessy Winkler.

The readings were followed by a talkback with the playwrights facilitated by Trae Banuelos, Executive Director of the Abortion Conversation Projects. Over 160 people attended.

In explaining the importance of the readings, playwright Sophie Goldstein said, "As someone who mostly writes with a focus on social justice issues, it was such a wonderful experience to be with artists who are truly blending art with activism. To be in a room where the conversation surrounded, not only about how art can help shift perspective and help us imagine a better world, but the actions we must all take outside of our artistic endeavors to fight for the dignity and human rights of both ourselves and others."

Several other plays were also named as top selections:

All the Emilies in All the Universes by Ian August
Made by God by Ciara Ni Chuirc
He’s Not Like That by Eleanor Evans-Wickberg
Sarah and Sally by Vickie Hampton
The Nearest Far Away Place by Aleks Merilo
The Waterfall by Phanesia Pharel
Tropopause by Dejing Eloise Wang

A is For has a history of giving back, and provides monthly financial assistance to abortion providers. All proceeds from the play festival go directly to A is For’s Beneficiary Program that provides unrestricted, critical funds to abortion funds and reproductive justice organizations across the country.

For more information about A is For and its programs, visit its website, https://aisfor.org.

Guest writer Cynthia Nuara is the Director of Development and Programs at A is For.

Update 1-14-2026/ 12-15-2025: Plays are now being accepted for the 2025-2026 One-Act Play Contest. Updated Deadline January 31, 2026. Read more here.

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: A is For

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

"Like" us on Facebook here.

Bluesky @reprofreedomarts.bsky.social

X: @ChoiceTheater @ReproJWalk
Instagram: @ReproFreedomArts
Website: www.reprofreedomarts.org

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Gathering Essential Abortion Stories Online: One Site

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 22:22:00 +0000

An abortion storytelling site that is a barely nine-months old has published over 135 stories of people's harrowing experiences with abortion care post-Roe, and 130 videos on TikTok.

The goal: to document in human terms the harm from abortion bans.

Abortion in America: Stories Igniting a Movement launched in late 2024. The project is collecting and aggregating abortion stories from patients, families, doctors, providers -- even some journalists.

Co-founder Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and its action fund from 2006 to 2018, came to believe that abortion storytelling is the most important thing needed today's abortion dystopia. Richards died of cancer in January 2025, but the project is continuing to make its mark.

In addition to Richards, the other founders are Eileen Diamond, an abortion provider in Florida, Kaitlyn Joshua, a Louisiana advocate who encountered her own endangered pregnancy and care frustrations, Lauren Peterson, a writer, and Lillian Tamayo, an advocate in Florida, according to a story in Forbes Magazine.

The project is "a new national effort dedicated to lifting up firsthand experiences of people affected by post-Roe abortion bans," reports the Abortion in America website.

The need for storytelling about abortion is acute and the permanent siting of the stories in a visible presence is vital, Richards believed. While horrific news stories of harm from abortion bans are reported day-by-day in magazines and online media, many get quickly lost in the fast-shuffling news cycle. The Abortion in America project seeks to establish a place that can collect, share and archive those stories moving forward.

In a TikTok video announcing the project, Richards said that the goal is "to document and give voice to the people who are living under abortion bans to show not only the harm that is happening but the resilience of this community." She added, "The more that people can hear these experiences and empathize – that’s how we’re going to change it."

The Abortion in America project uses a variety of online platforms to share its vision.

The website, Abortion in America.org, posts news articles and stories, some written by Abortion in America personnel, others pulled in full from other open-sharing media outlets or synopsized with a link if from a site behind a paywall. The stories focus on individuals and each includes a compelling photograph that brings readers right into the scene. At least one story from every state is now included on the site, with multiple stories from states where abortion is banned.

The site notes:

"When Roe v. Wade was overturned, Americans lost a right essential to our health, lives, and opportunities.

"Since then, brave people have come forward to share stories of being unable to access prenatal care, forced to travel hundreds of miles for abortion care, or left with no option but to give birth.

"Health care providers have spoken out about the challenges of treating their patients, family members have given voice to the pain and trauma of watching a loved one struggle after being denied care, and faith leaders have underscored the importance of standing up for dignity and freedom in this unprecedented moment."

One story by Lauren Peterson of Abortion in America was gathered in conjunction with StoryCorps Studios in Louisiana. In it, Dr. Nicolle Freehill, an Ob/Gyn, and Haley Beavers Khoury, a medical student in Louisiana, talk about how the overturning of Roe v. Wade has "reshaped the way they practice medicine and think about their careers" -- facing new, unanticipated obstacles to delivering high-quality care to their patients.

Dr. Nichole Freehill, Haley Beavers Khoury

Another recent website story, "A Marine, a mother, and her abortion that let her keep both roles," by Grace Haley for Abortion in America is the story of Marine veteran Joanna Sweatt. Already a mother, she describes her abortion while she was serving in the military. The story on the website is connected to a video where Sweatt describes navigating the daunting military health system to get an abortion at another base, something made even more difficult today.

In addition to its own reporting on the website, vetted stories are included from a variety of trusted sites: Pro Publica; CBS; PBS; Glamour; Mother Jones; Up North News; 404Media; 11Alive; Calmatters; Pennsylvania Independent; MSNBC; Oregon Capital Chronicle; Daily Montanan; Idaho Capital Sun; 40/29 news; Newsweek; People; The Pro-Voice Project; Courier Texas; Capital B; Louisiana Illuminator; Houston Landing; The Barbed Wire; The 19th; The Nevadan; Elle; Marie Claire; KFF Health News; NBC; The New York Times (synopsis); Amnesty International; Des Moines Register; KQED; Oregon Public Broadcast; The Washington Post (synopsis); Scripps News; The Marshall Project; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; The Guardian; Stateline; The New Yorker; Dallas Morning News; ABC; The Defenders; Post-Gazette; The Cut; Time; C-SPAN; New York Magazine; People; Portland Press Herald; Reuters; Alaska Beacon; WWNO; Shorthand; Business Insider; Vermont Public; Buzzfeed; Delaware News Journal The Salt Lake Tribune (synopsis).

The website is also linked to Charley, a trustworthy chatbox for abortion information. Charley will pop up to ask in English and Spanish if website viewers need information about abortion options.

On TikTok, Abortion in America has gathered 13,000 followers for its scores of short videos of abortion storytellers.

And on Instagram, 15,700 followers can also see videos and stories, including a talk by Ryan Hamilton about the denial of care to his wife during a miscarriage in Texas.

"Research shows that personal stories about the harm caused by abortion bans have the power to change hearts and minds, and build public support for reproductive freedom," writes Abortion in America.

Questions about Abortion in America can be directed to info@abortioninamerica.org .

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: Sceenshots, Abortion in America

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

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Podcasts Urge 'Green Wave' Tactics for US Abortion Advocacy

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Sun, 29 Jun 2025 06:06:00 +0000

An innovative podcast series, Green Tide Rising, digs into the "green wave" movement that successfully overthrew abortion bans in Latin America, but with a specific goal: showing advocates in the US a model for action following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The Green Wave, a grassroots feminist abortion rights movement in Latin America, got its name from the arbor green bandannas that followers waved and wore at protests and marches to demand reform of anti-abortion bans.

The movement began in Argentina in 2018 and spread to other countries in the Global South where some of the most stringent and punitive abortion bans criminalized abortion and even jailed women for miscarriages.

In country after country, the Green Wave won and redressed abortion bans, installing liberalized abortion policies. Those successes, the podcast creators believe, offer concrete ideas on how to fight for reproductive freedom under oppressive governments.

"Through the eyes of feminist lawyer and reproductive rights advocate Ximena Casas Isaza, we meet the people who have turned the fight for reproductive justice in Latin America and the Caribbean into a powerful, modern feminist movement – from the tip of Argentina all the way to Mexico and beyond," the producers note.

An introductory trailer (embedded below) describes how U.S. movements can learn from and emulate the Green Wave.

Eight podcasts and one wrap-up feature interviews with leading players in the Green Wave movement. Episodes focus on the advocacy in specific countries: Argentina (episode 1), El Salvador (episode 2), Colombia (episode 4), the Dominican Republic (episode 5) and Brazil (episode 6) and discuss particular issues arising in each country, whether expanding limited exceptions, decriminalization, or the dangers of people forced to cross borders for care. One podcast (episode 3) discusses what it describes as the hidden topic surrounding abortion: sex and sexuality.

Final selections are about the US: 'Storytelling Conversation and Community,' (episode 7), 'The Green Tide Rises,' (episode 8) and a post-election 2024 analysis in 'This is Not the End of the Fight' (episode 9).

The first podcast about Argentina begins in Buenos Aires, "the birthplace of the Green Wave," the producers write. "In 2020, Argentina achieved a milestone by legalizing abortion up to 14 weeks. But a new right-wing president could potentially jeopardize this progress. We meet feminist lawyer Soledad Deza, who represented Belén, a woman who was imprisoned for an obstetric emergency and whose story catalyzed what would become an international movement; and we speak with Marta Alaniz, the founder of the Argentina chapter Catolica por el Derecho de Decidir (Catholics for the Right to Decide). Marta, a Green Wave icon, recounts how the green scarf became the symbol of the movement: “how much can be said without saying anything at all?” note the producers.

In episode 7, a roundtable discussion with Reproductive Justice Leader Danielle Rodriguez from Sistersong in the US and Green Wave leaders from Colombia, the conversation clearly highlights what the US can learn from our sisters and fellow activists in the Global South. The leaders discuss how our shared liberation is more intertwined than ever, and how Latin America has provided a blueprint of action to secure reproductive freedom under hostile and oppressive governments.

The podcasts, in English and Spanish, are 35 to 40 minutes long and are available on a range of podcast platforms -- Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify and iHeart Radio.

They can also be heard on YouTube, where additional short videos called ENTONCES are posted for each episode.

The series is hosted by Asha Dahya, also an Executive Producer, with co-host Monica Morales Garcia, Story Producer. Other creatives involved include Jess Jacobs, Executive Producer and Director; Addi Bjaringer, Producer and Co-Director, and Lela Meadow-Conner, Executive Producer.

The Telly Awards, which recognizes excellence in video and digital media from around the world, recently honored the series with the Silver Award for projects that drive social change and awareness. The series was also nominated for a One World Media Award in 2025.

This project was produced with the support of the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) as part of its Reproductive Rights, Health, and Justice in the Americas initiative, and in partnership with Pod People; music by Andrés Azpiri; artwork by Daniela Jordan-Villaveces; Entonces' editing by Carla Roda.

Green Tide Rising: Details
Website: https://greentiderising.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GreenTideRisingpod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greentiderising/ or @greentiderising
Substack: https://greentiderising.substack.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Green-Tide-Rising-Podcast/61564995005361/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@GreenTideRising
X: https://www.tiktok.com/@GreenTideRising
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/213d94fe-4431-405c-9a29-5e22bf6412e2/green-tide-rising
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/green-tide-rising/id1765199923
iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-green-tide-rising-209781495/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0pYJeJ6VwEPPe1nUTWVDvb?si=20cac40faf1146b9&nd=1&dlsi=cc99412b7b094f1d

Green Tide Rising Trailer

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: Green Tide Rising screenshots, PR

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Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

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Audio: Actors Dissect Comstock Law and Threat to Abortion Pills

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 19:15:00 +0000

The Comstock Act, an outdated law, passed by Congress 152 years ago, is currently being raised from the dead by anti-abortion zealots who want to use it to end the availability of abortion pills.

So what exactly is this zombie law, The Comstock Act? And how did it come to this place where it is roaring into our bedrooms again?

ReproFreedomArts.org set out to answer these questions with a 15-minute audio production on YouTube 'The Comstock Act in Six Parts' (also on SoundCloud and embed below).

In podcast style, five actors and one lawyer look at the outrageous language of The Comstock Act and discuss why people need to push back against efforts to revive it.

Today, conservative lawyers and anti-abortion activists are trying to use this outmoded law to crush access to abortion pills by criminalized their mailing or delivery.

The use of abortion pills has increased since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Pills are used in two ways -- in medication abortions that are overseen by a clinic, doctor or healthcare provider. and in self-managed abortions by which a people do the abortion on their own. Most pill abortions involve a two-pill regime -- first mifepristone (big pill in the picture) and within a day or two, several misoprostol pills (smaller ones pictured). The history of abortion pills -- developed about 100 years after the Comstock Act -- is fully described in a downloadable book by Carrie N. Baker

Reviving the Comstock Act is one of several attacks by anti-abortion zealots to make it impossible to get the pills.

The Old Law and the Man Behind It

Named after Anthony Comstock, a Puritan and rabid anti-sex moralist, the Comstock Act is officially called 'An Act of the Suppression of, Trade in, and Circulation of Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use.' It's a federal law but in the late 1800s, many states had their own mini Comstock laws, too.

The ostensible goal of the law was to stop obscene erotic literature being sent in the mails. Comstock and others believed that erotica damaged the moral fiber of the nation. They insisted that such literatre harmed young people and fostered evil, encouraging people to have non-procreative sex. In their view, the sex exists only to have babies.

Abortion and methods of birth control and information about them are explicitly identified as 'obscene' materials under the Comstock Act -- printing, mailing or sharing information about birth control or abortion was banned.

Actors: Abigail Ramsay, Michelle Liu, Alinca Hamilton, Isabella Gallegos, Carl H. Jaynes

Also prohibited under the law -- erotic art, literature, 'exotic' dancing, literature about sex or prostitution, brothels, medicines. A violation of the Comstock Act could result in five years in prison.

The text of the law, read by actors on the audio production 'The Comstock Law in Six Parts':

"Every obscene, lewd, or lascivious, and every filthy book, pamphlet, picture, paper, letter, writing, print or other publication of an indecent character, and every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for preventing conception or producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use, and every article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for preventing conception or producing abortion or for any indecent or immoral purpose, and every written or printed card, letter, circular, book, pamphlet advertisement, or notice of any kind giving information directly or indirectly, where or how or of whom or by what means any of the hereinbefore-mentioned matters, articles or things may be obtained or made, or where or by whom any act or operation of any kind for the procuring or producing of abortion will be done or performed or how or by what means conception may be prevented or abortion may be produced, whether sealed or unsealed [note:referring to mailed items] and every letter, packet, package, or other mail matter containing any filthy, file or indecent thing, device or substance and every paper, writing, advertisement or representation that any article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing may, or can be used or applied, for preventing conception or producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose, and every description calculated to induce or incite a person to so use or apply any such article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing, is hereby declared to be a non-mailable matter and shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered from any post office or by any letter carrier. Whoever shall knowingly deposit or cause to be deposited for mailing or delivery, anything declared by this section to be nonmailable, or shall knowingly take, or cause the same to be taken, from the mails for the purpose of circulation or disposing thereof, or of aiding in the circulation or disposition thereof, shall be find more more than five thousand dollars, or imprisoned not more than five years or both." [emphasis added]

Even at the time it was passed, the Comstock Act was ridiculed, according to a comprehensive legal analysis by scholars Reva Siegel and Mary Ziegler, "Comstockery: How Government Censorship Gave Birth to the Law of Sexual and Reproductive Freedom, and May Again Threaten It."

Still, it was no joke when people were arrested or imprisoned under the Comstock Act -- including radical orator Emma Goldman, birth control advocate Margaret Sanger and her husband, abortion provider Madame Restell, as well as doctors, publishers and thousands of others. According to his own account, in a single year (1874), Comstock seized 13,000 pounds of books. 199.400 pictures and 60,300 'improper rubber articles.'

Comstockery

Anthony Comstock

Anthony Comstock bragged about his success. In The Comstock Act in Six Parts, we hear some of his words:

'Freedom to speak or print does not imply the right to spout that which shocks decency, corrupts the morals of the young, and destroys all faith God.'

'I am willing to fight the devil.... Yes, they call it Comstockery. I'm proud of it!'

'Before my mother left this earth when I was ten years of age, she pressed a singular claim: the cause of moral purity. And so I say, Thank you, dear mother; my critics mean naught compared to the flame of your devotion.'

Comstock claimed to have 2, 881 convictions by the end of his career.

The Comstock Law continued after his death in 1915. Eventually, some parts were rendered moot or repealed. The references to birth control were rejected by the courts and then repealed in the 1970s. The references to abortion were considered dead after the decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, and no one bothered to repeal them.

But after Dobbs v. Jackson overturned Roe in 2022, anti-abortion zealots began thinking about bringing Comstock back from the dead. With people facing abortion bans in 14 states, excessive costs to travel to other states for a clinical (or 'medical' abortion) abortion, taking abortion pills grew by necessity, accounting for 63 percent (642,700) of abortions in 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Package of abortion pills

A Zombie Law is Reactivated

Anti-abortion zealots decided that they could revive the Comstock Law to end the access to abortion pills sent in the mail. The conservative blueprint Project 2025 (described by the ACLU) promotes using it, notes the Center for Reproductive Rights. It is one of a slew of attempts by anti-abortion zealots to make abortion pills completely inaccessible across the country, no matter what state law prevails.

And an ultraconservative judge in Texas approved the idea, and although there is still no conclusive decision yet in that case, the fact that it's even in the realm of possibility is shocking. Other courts and efforts are trying to revive this zombie law, too, explain law professors Sonia Suter and Naomi Cahn in this outstanding 2023 article, 'An obscure 1800s law is shaping up to be the center of the next abortion battle.'

Farah Diaz-Tello, Senior Counsel and Legal Director at If/When/How, Lawyering for Reproductive Justice, gives a clear explanation of these issues in conversation with actor Alinca Hamilton in The Comstock Act in Six Parts.

Lawyer Farah Diaz-Tello

Says Diaz-Tello: "The flow of commerce across state lines is integral to being able to deliver health care. And anti-abortion zealots want to put a stop to that to keep everybody from being able to access abortion care, even those of us who are in states that are supposed to be safe like New York or California."

"It's so important for everybody to be aware of what is going on where they live. The restrictions on people's ability to access care can only happen when we are not paying attention. So with the loss of Roe v. Wade, we have lost important constitutional guard rails that keep the state from interfering in people's reproductive lives in these really intrusive and harmful ways. That means that we all need to be vigilant. We all need to show up for every election. We all need to be pressuring our elected officials and we all need to be contributing our time and our resources in any way we can because without those constitutional guard rails we are the ones who have to make sure that people are able to access care."

While there are certainly other efforts to prevent people from gaining access to abortion pills, some described in this AP article and this CBS News story, reviving the Comstock Act is a real demonstration of the absurd and dangerous overreach that anti-abortion zealots are willing to pursue. And, as the ReproFreedomArts.org audiocast states in its final act: it's time to Repeal the Comstock Act.

The Comstock Act in Six Parts features actors Isabella Gallegos, Alinca Hamilton, Carl H. Jaynes, Michelle Liu and Abigail Ramsay; special guest, Farah Diaz-Tello, Senior Counsel and Legal Director at If/When/How, Lawyering for Reproductive Justice. Janet Bentley is director and creative director, music by Andy Evan Cohen; Cindy Cooper, writer. A project of ReproFreedomArts.org, and produced by Roly Poly Productions.

Listen to The Comstock Act in Six Parts

on YouTube https://youtu.be/0Ym9-w8wh4k

on SoundCloud

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: ReproFreedomArts.org

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

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Short Films Serve as Witnesses to Post-Roe Abortion Turmoil

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy Cooper, ReproFreedomArts) — Tue, 27 May 2025 02:53:00 +0000

Co-authored by members of The Abortion Clinic Film Collective

The Abortion Clinic Film Collective is a collection of filmmakers who have made short films that bear witness to the broad and life-threatening ramifications of a post-Roe reality.

“The Abortion Clinic Film Collective was born out of rage,” says founder and filmmaker Kristy Guevara-Flanagan.

Forming a Film Collective

When the Dobbs decision (ending the federal right to abortion) was leaked in 2023, Guevara-Flanagan reached out to feminist filmmakers from across the country and asked if they would contribute to a project looking at the impact of the overturn of Roe v. Wade from different states’ perspectives.

“I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I knew that each state would be affected differently and that it would be important to tell this story from people with specific relationships to these regions,” Guevara-Flanagan says. (See a map of state responses.)

Collective member Lynne Sachs, whose film Contractions takes place in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, says, “Maybe everyone has this feeling in some way. When something terrible happens in the world, we ask ourselves, 'What can I do?' More often than not, despite feeling hopeless and powerless, life goes on. But sometimes, despite despair, we can respond. Artistic practices articulate how we are feeling, not so much as an act of persuasion but rather a witnessing."

The Collective grew organically by word of mouth. “We had very little funding, so we had to think small. What could we make quickly, embracing the urgency of the situation?” Guevara-Flanagan says.

Members of the Abortion Clinic Film Collective meet via Zoom monthly. They connected emotionally over the loss of access to abortion care and supported one another in the development of film ideas. Eventually, the collective grew, more films were invited, and a website was made. These films are now available to be booked for screenings in person or online.

The Collective now includes 11 filmmakers from various regions across the country: Cali M. Banks, Đoan Hoàng Curtis, Lori Felker, Kelly Gallagher, Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, Ruth Hayes, Lindsay Opoku-Acheampong, Luiza Parvu, Raymond Rea, Lynne Sachs, and Sasha Waters.

The collective hopes that each film provides a window into the devastating effects of the Dobbs decision.

Filmmakers Create Individual Responses

Đoan Hoàng Curtis never thought she would be making a film about her abortion. “When Kristy reached out to me about the concept and filming at the last abortion clinic in Kentucky,” says Hoang Curtis, “we had a moment when I realized I knew the place well. The recognition left me speechless. My film, The Longest Walk, forced me to face a past hardship and use that experience to show what many young girls and women are still facing today. The difference now is that there is no legal remedy left in states where abortion is banned.”

Stories from across the country give scope to the enormity of impact and the specificity of the issue. Filmmaker Cali M. Banks writes, “I was inspired to weave North Carolina's hostile legislature on abortion with personal anecdotes, and anecdotes from women of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. [Catch Us on the Way Down] incorporates knowledge from traditional medicinal practices with present-day access to reproductive healthcare, as a hope of a return and honoration of matrilineality in tribes.”

Filmmaker Raymond Rea (A Mile and A Half), was living in a sister city/sister town on the border of Minnesota and North Dakota. “The physical border between the two states is a very small river, but residents on either side of the river are granted profoundly different human rights. It’s a unique microcosm of what state-by-state trigger bans did post Dobbs decision, and I tried to channel what it means when a place, a home, or a body, is controlled by legislators who only represent themselves and will never be impacted by their own laws,” says Rea.

From Washington State, Ruth Hayes used animation as an outlet for her rage in her film, Hemorrhage. “I made a sequence of crayon and watercolor rubbings of a coat hanger, repeatedly making new rubbings over previous ones to create layers and incorporating other elements, including headlines and a score featuring voices sampled from the Supreme Court arguments in Dobbs. The film is an expression of outrage against increasingly repressive forces eviscerating women’s rights and endangering our health and well-being," says filmmaker Hayes.

Kristy Guevara-Flanagan was struck by the sudden confusion Arizona was experiencing and "the independent clinic directors who defied the law to keep open for as long as they could,” writes Guevara-Flanagan about her film, As Long as We Can. “After spending time at the clinic, I was further moved by the dedication, warmth, and ferocity of its employees and volunteer escorts.”

Filmmaker and programmer Luiza Parvu’s film Eggshells also takes place among the legislative battlefields of Arizona: “I was born in totalitarian Romania," says Parvu. "As a teenager, I slowly began to learn about my mother’s and grandmother’s numerous at-home illegal abortions under the regime. They had to go through those alone, in silent concrete high-rise apartments, while we children were in school, or left with relatives or neighbors. When I heard about the Abortion Clinic Film Collective, I knew my film had to join that conversation.”

Screenings, Expansion and Outreach

Lori Felker, a filmmaker based in Chicago, asked to join the collective after seeing three of the films at film festivals in the Fall of 2024.

“I am excited that the method of connecting, listening, making, and sharing is working. I saw these films on screen and it felt like an invitation to jump up and join in the fight," says Felker.

She continues: "I immediately started looking for clinic stories in Chicago, a 'blue' state with a supportive governor, that people may assume is safe from threats. I quickly found out that it wasn’t true, that even in Chicago women are fighting for their rights and fighting for respect. This led me to consulting with the Clinic Vest Project, which, I was excited to learn, started in Chicago!”

Together, these films, from four to 12 minutes in length, bear witness to this troubled time in which women are losing their ability to control what happens to their bodies.

The filmmakers engage with spokespeople in the medical field, underground activists with a commitment to acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, and quietly powerful, committed volunteers. The experience of making these films also changed collective members.

The films have begun screening across the country in community events with healthcare workers, reproductive justice advocates, students, as well as in film festivals.

The Abortion Clinic Film Collective films are available to be booked and screened via a contact form on their website.

The films:

A Mile and a Half (5 min) by Raymond Rea
Contractions (12 min) by Lynne Sachs
As Long As We Can (11.5 min) by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan
Retracing Our Steps (8 min) by Kelly Gallagher
Longest Walk (9 min) by Doan Hoang Curtis
We Are About to Commit a Felony (4 min) by Sasha Waters
Hemorrhage (4 min) by Ruth Hayes
Catch Us On the Way Down (7 min) by Cali M. Banks
What Was (Working Title) (work in progress) by Lindsay Opokus0Acheampong
Freedom From (Working Title) (work-in-progress) by Lori Felker
Eggshells (work in progress) by Luiza Parvu

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Images: The Abortion Film Collective" Logo, Scene "As Long As We Can'; Marquee, Moscow Idaho

This blog is a public service of Repro Freedom Arts

Celebrating Reproductive Health, Rights, Freedom and Justice

Our collection: Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom

We Dissent: Voices for Reproductive Rights, now on YouTube

Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour in Manhattan

See an index of 180 of the most recent blogs

See the guide to 520 blog posts on Up the Creativity

Repro Freedom Arts is a platform of Words of Choice, a nonprofit arts organization Tax-deductible donations can be made online.

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