New documentary injects humor into trying year for abortion rights community
Lizz Winstead is one of the most prominent entertainers supporting abortion access
A new film about the Abortion Access Front shows how the abortion rights movement and feminism have evolved for the more significant part of the last decade.
No One Asked You premiered Monday at DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary film festival. They shot the film over seven years. At the center of the movie is Lizz Winstead, co-creator/former head writer of The Daily Show. She runs the non-profit Abortion Access Front.
“You don’t make a ton of friends being the abortion comedian,” Winstead said early in the film.
The documentary begins with protests outside the Supreme Court before the Dobbs decision was announced. It then takes viewers back to the Women’s March in 2017. Sprinkled in is footage from decades worth of activism.
It then goes back and tells some of Winstead’s experience as a liberal activist and experiences fighting for reproductive rights. It also describes the story of the Abortion Access Front, which used to be known as the Lady Parts Justice League. The group has created comedic segments and entertainment that aim to destigmatize abortion.
Much of the film deals with them traveling to different parts of the country to depict the challenges local activists have with the trigger bans and other restrictions that came into place following the demise of Roe.
Winstead traveled to Mississippi to protest in Jackson, where the last abortion clinic in the state was before it closed after the Dobbs decision. That facility was the one at the center of the lawsuit. Derenda Hancock was featured. I interviewed her when I traveled to Jackson last year as well. Hancock spoke about the poverty and misogyny that prevail over much of the state. She was a clinic escort at Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The filmmakers then go to Texas to depict the struggle against Senate Bill 8, which allowed anyone to sue someone who performs or aids an abortion.
As they went, antiabortion protestors and activists confronted them in predictable ways. Along their routes, billboards declaring biblical messages are among the b-roll footage accompanying the narrative.
“That’s not Christianity up there,” one person said.
The film also educates people about crisis pregnancy centers. There is also footage shot inside of a facility to show how it operates and what staffers tell women who come in there seeking abortion care.
“It’s one of the cruelest things you can do,” an activist said on camera.
Later, Winstead discusses Abolish Human Abortions, a fringe antiabortion group that shows pictures of dead fetuses on placards with the names of abortion doctors. While Winstead may have made her chops as a comedian, she reveals that she is an accomplished and hardened activist in the film. Much of what she goes through is also what escorts, providers, and feminist leaders have gone through in the last few decades of the reproductive rights movement.
The film is worth watching if only to see how ordinary activists can be despite being confronted by extraordinary circumstances. It humanizes everyone, from the provider to the escort to the person who seeks care. Highly recommend.