The World Is Grim, But Lizz Winstead Insists Abortion Rights Activism Doesn’t Have to Be
As a Florida native, I attended a special Tallahassee screening of Ruth Leitman's No One Asked You, a surprisingly uplifting abortion documentary, featuring Winstead, that declares we need to "make abortion great again."
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Derenda Hancock, a longtime abortion clinic escort at the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is sprawled across a blue hospital gurney, the brim of her cowboy hat shading her eyes. “This is how you party with abortion people,” Lizz Winstead, the co-creator of the Daily Show and founder of Abortion Access Front (AAF), says in a voiceover before the cameras zoom out to reveal a nearly empty, nondescript parking lot. “They bring out a gurney and they use it as a bar!” Winstead continues, as we watch Hancock and her coworkers—all seemingly celebrating a birthday—lounge on stretchers and clink their glasses.
This spirit—bubbly drinks and gallows humor—is at the heart of the new documentary No One Asked You, the only abortion doc that’ll make you laugh as much as it’ll make you want to cry. It’s an increasingly dark time for reproductive rights but the doc, directed by Ruth Leitman, insists that just because our world is grim doesn’t mean our activism has to be.
Often sobering but never sober, No One Asked You—which is titled after a particularly cathartic chant Winstead, Hancock, and co throw back at anti-abortion extremists—spans six years in time, with the bulk of it filmed prior to the 2022 court decision heard ‘round the world. While Winstead, the AAF, and her 2017 multi-comedian roving abortion-stand-up extravaganza (playfully named the Vagical Mystery Tour) serve as the documentary’s core, Leitman spends a lot of the runtime giving a much-needed human face to abortion providers and clinics across the nation—including Mississippi’s Jackson Women’s Health Organization, lovingly known as “Pink House,” which was rocketed to the forefront of the abortion debate as the plaintiff in the notorious Dobbs case.
On June 24th, to “honor” the Supreme Court’s atrocious 2022 Dobbs decision, the doc’s producers, Rachel Rozycki & Andrea Raby, organized simultaneous screenings in select cities as a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the day they’ve dubbed the Overturniversary. As Winstead recently told Vanity Fair’s Chris Smith, the screenings were specifically held “in states where abortion has effectively become illegal or will be on the ballot this fall.” Because I’m unlucky enough to live under the cruel, pudding-covered hand of Governor Ron DeSantis, I got to attend the screening in Tallahassee, Florida. In November, the state will vote on a proposed amendment to the state Constitution (Amendment 4) that would secure bodily autonomy and reproductive rights for Floridians. Its importance cannot be understated, especially considering that Florida enacted a near-total abortion ban on May 1.
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When I walked through the double doors of the Proof Brewing Company on the 24th, I was prepared to spend the night mourning Roe. But instead of a funeral, I found a celebration. Two women with glittery uterus tattoos stenciled onto their cheeks guided me to a popcorn buffet, which featured over two dozen flavors of popcorn I had no idea existed and a well-stocked array of movie candy. A mini disco ball hung from the ceiling, dangling above the nearly 100 guests mingling on couches and grabbing drinks from the bar. Informative booths sold bracelets in support of the Yes on 4 campaign and handed out free emergency contraception, which, in DeSantis’ territory, is definitely radical. I spotted a pair of elderly women wrapped in fuzzy, star-covered blankets cuddled up on a couch; a six-foot-something pilot in full uniform leaning on the bar; and a state Representative chatting with her friends. I had a cocktail, a bucket of sour-cream-and-onion popcorn mixed with Junior Mints, and illicit emergency contraception tucked in my back pocket like I was attending the pro-abortion equivalent of a speakeasy in Prohibition. It was lovely.
After a few words from one of the event’s organizers, the room dimmed and the screen flickered to life. Winstead’s face was projected onto the bar’s wall; not a part of the film, but a specialized video message for the occasion. Finally, the doc began, and if the laughter around me was to be believed, Leitman’s doc is an abortion riot (no, Fox News, not that kind of riot).
The most affecting moments of No One Asked You involved Jackson Women’s Health where Hancock, the film’s secret weapon, spent her days coordinating volunteer escorts. The footage spanned over eight years, from the founding of Abortion Access Front in 2015 to our current post-Dobbs dystopia, meaning that the film documents Pink House long before the clinic found itself at the center of nationwide abortion discourse. While I’ve already spent two years shattered by the Court’s decision, seeing the clinic that found itself trapped in the eye of the storm—and, more importantly, the overwhelming love and community the Pink House elicited—made it that much more painful to watch. The film doesn’t lean away from this pain, but its message remains: while we shouldn’t ignore how miserable this dystopian moment is, both we and our activism are better off when we can also draw from our love and joy.
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As No One Asked You points out, anti-abortion organizations and extremists use the term “abortion” four times more than pro-abortion activists do, meaning cultural connotations of “abortion” are inherently skewed. As such, it’s not enough to treat abortion neutrally; in order to even the scales, Winstead insists we have to go whole hog: get #ILoveAbortion trending or bust. It’s not that the film minimizes the very legitimate mental, emotional, and physical costs many experience in relation to abortion, but that those traumas exist precisely because of the immense stigma surrounding it. Normalizing abortion is important, but No One Asked You goes one step further to declare (often while dressed as human-sized storks, or clad in bright pink clit costumes) that we need to “make abortion great again.”
And that energy remained long after the last credits rolled. The event, hosted by a local nonprofit supporting access cheekily named the Rapid Benefits Group Fund (RBG Fund, for short; get it?), felt almost like a companion piece to the film. Prominent figures in the Florida reproductive rights movement—Lauren Brenzel, the campaign director for Yes on 4; Kara Gross, the Legislative Director of the ACLU of Florida and also such a badass that I’d imagine her daughter must be, like, really cool (full disclosure: she is my mother)—also spoke after the screening. It’s not enough to laugh at some jokes, the speakers insisted; we need to turn this feeling, this community, into something actionable, even just on a local level. In other words: get up, stop doom-scrolling, and tell every Floridian you know to vote for Amendment 4 come November.
The amendment, which is the single most durable abortion protection a state like Florida could have right now, requires 60% of the vote in order to be written into the Constitution, and it might be the state’s last chance to ensure any kind of long-term reproductive freedom, at least for the foreseeable future. Florida needs Amendment 4, which means we, random citizens that we are, need to vote/act/canvass/wear a bright pink clit costume, etc., etc. As No One Asked You illustrates, activism doesn’t need to be an exercise in misery. Raising awareness and fighting for abortion rights doesn’t mean we need to hold dreary town halls, or solemnly drag our feet along endless canvassing tracks. Everything sucks, so bring out the gurneys and uterus tats, and let’s throw a goddamn abortion party.