Tina Fey isn't the only actor helping the Center for Reproductive Rights raise money and "consciousness" about how women need quick (and occasionally subsidized) abortions. For their "Draw the Line" campaign against the pro-life movement in America and around the world, a whole roster of stars (and semi-stars) filmed a pro-abortion video.
That left-wing cast included Meryl Streep, Amy Poehler, Sarah Silverman, Sandra Bernhard, Kevin Bacon and his wife Kyra Sedgwick, Lisa Kudrow, Tea Leoni, Audra McDonald, Martha Plimpton, Oliver Platt, Ally Sheedy, and Billy Crudup:
The Center for Reproductive Rights blurs countries and causes, so where one woman in Kenya can't take her baby home because she's in debt for the delivery, this is compared to America being hostile to very late-term abortions in the former George Tiller clinic in Kansas. The celebrities really get going in this late manifesto portion:
I am pro-woman.
I am pro-family.
I am pro-choice.
I am pro-freedom.
I am pro-keeping the politicians the hell out of my business.
I am pro-dignity.
I am pro-equality.
I am pro-rights.
Women’s rights.
Reproductive rights.
Human rights .
The Center's staffers were quite clear they wanted to "keep religion out of the debate about reproductive rights" and "keep politicians out of our doctor’s offices and out of our private lives." But they also expect the taxpayer to pay for the abortions and the contraceptives and the sterilizations -- and butt out while they foot the bill.
In another video, Meryl Streep makes the usual pitch about the essential "women's health care" that is abortion, and then strangely added "And have you even heard the things they're saying about us? It would make Sarah Silverman blush." Streep has no example -- perhaps because it would have to be a nuclear doozy.
In yet another video, Kevin Bacon and his wife lament the Georgia pro-life lawmaker who compared women giving birth to pigs and cows. Comparing humans to animals? Not smart politics. So then why, seconds later, do they have Sandra Bernhard complain "I mean, animals have more sense than these people!"
Rebecca Webb at The New York Observer had more detail on the pro-abortion gala that Tina Fey headlined:
After Ms. Fey's speech, which included a reading from Bossypants detailing her first trip to the gyno, and an impression of Sissy Spacek doing an impression of Loretta Lynn, a promotional video of sorts played above her head. It included three "real-life" stories, numerous female celebrities and a Kevin Bacon cameo all urging us to do that which should have already been done those twenty years ago.
How times haven't changed.
Mr. Tucci, who has long been involved with the efforts of Planned Parenthood, took the stage to vehemently express his hopes that there would not be another event next year, his uncomfortably serious face magnified on two flanking TV screens. The crowd of people clasping their glasses and crunching on beet chips stared at him with unusual focus.
Guest Janeane Garofalo was slightly and refreshingly more casual on all counts. Wearing knee-high moccasin boots, a cotton leopard-print dress and a somewhat unrecognizable countenance, she explained that she was in attendance because she had been invited.
Both presidential candidates are angling to win women's votes, and abortion is "the most important issue for women," according to a recent Gallup Poll of registered female voters in 12 swing states. As a result, pro-choice advocacy groups have launched campaigns focusing on what they call Republicans' "war on women."
At the Center for Reproductive Rights, for instance, the "Draw the Line" campaign features iconic actress Meryl Streep, who says she's signing the center's "Bill of Reproductive Rights" and pointedly asks viewers, "What are you waiting for?"
Elsewhere, an eye-catching video called "My Country, My Choice," shows 28 presumably naked women covering themselves with signs that ask, "If you don't trust me with my body, why should I trust you with my country?"
