Artists Explore Reproductive Freedom

At current rates, about one in three American women will have had an abortion by the time she is 45 (Alan Guttmacher Institute). Think about it: 1.3 million American women per year are having abortions. Where are these women’s voices in the echo chamber of public debate over reproductive rights?

Abortion was legalized nationwide by a 1973 case before the U.S. Supreme Court called Roe v. Wade. The Senate is now considering a Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito, who may vote to reverse the Roe decision, allowing states to outlaw abortion altogether. The stakes are very high for women. Before Roe v. Wade, women were often forced to choose between an unwanted pregnancy or an illegal abortion, often performed under unsafe conditions.

This month you can click on the photos to the right to read interviews with three very different artists from the WomenArts Network whose work explores some of the human stories at the heart of the policy debates.

• Cindy Cooper is a playwright who created Words of Choice, a collection of writings ranging from a poem by performance artist Alix Olson to the text of the landmark decision Roe v. Wade itself.

• Ju-Yeon Ryu is a dancer and choreographer whose Beyond Good and Evil – Coin Locker Babies portrays the heartbreaking histories of three Asian women in America.

• Lisa Link created Warnings, a multi-media installation that uses collage and video montage to invite viewers to reflect on the uses and misuses of politics, propaganda, and power in the history of reproductive health.

What’s at Stake? Get the Lowdown

Abortion and contraception were unregulated and easily available in the United States until the mid-19th century, when states began passing laws banning abortion and restricting access to birth control. The most extreme of these were the Comstock Laws of 1873, which outlawed the distribution of “obscene literature” and “immoral articles.” They were used repeatedly to prosecute activists and health-care providers who tried to make family planning information available, most notably the pioneering Margaret Sanger, who was hounded for most of her adult life.

From the mid-19th century until 1965, states could – and did – prohibit the use of birth control by married couples (until 1972 for single people). These were truly difficult years for women: Many women of color and disabled women were sterilized against their will, sometimes even without their knowledge. By the early 1960s, 17% of pregnancy-related deaths resulted from illegal abortions. Most importantly, the power of the state to control when and if women would bear children severely undermined women’s ability to be full participants in the public life of the country and to live the lives they would choose.

We’ve compiled some resources to help you learn more about this history and what’s at stake in the struggle for reproductive freedom:

• Ms. Magazine’s Online Edition gives a concise analysis of what’s at stake in the debates over the makeup of the Supreme Court. Their coverage also includes poll results about Americans’ attitudes toward reproductive rights and talking points for defending those rights: www.msmagazine.com/summer2005/urgentreport.asp

This newsletter is made possible by generous grants from the Valentine Foundation, the CDQ Charitable Trust, the Women’s Funding Network Venture Fund, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Other Artists Addressing This Issue

Women are creating plays, puppetry, documentary films, and more to document and explore the issues at the heart of the reproductive rights debate. We have assembled a list of WomenArts Network artists and others who are addressing this issue.
Read the list>>

If you are a member of the WomenArts Network and we missed you, please edit your profile to add “Pregnancy/ Abortion/Childbirth” as one of your General Themes so that people searching on this topic will find you.

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