NARAL Pro-Choice New York has released a couple of great videos this campaign season to make sure that voters to about the positions of candidates who are not interested in keeping safe and legal abortion care available in New York.
One takes on Carl Paladino, the Republican candidate for governor. Its sharp style and strong points make it an exemplar for other campaigns seeking to "out" anti-abortion candidates. In addition to its YouTube presence, it has appeared on television spots, as well.
The simple and effective imagery shows women being measured in height with a light bulb flashing, as if they are being "booked." The text in this 30-second take is simple. "Carl Paladino has one word when it comes to women's right to choose: no... If Carl Paladino had his way, abortion would be a crime and women would be treated like criminals." A pounding drum underbeat helps drive home the point. All in all, the ad is crisp and inventive: a highly effective tack.
Other videos, not quite as highly produced, also offer important commentary. One on the race for attorney general merely shows screens with text describing how attorneys general in other states have undercut and undermined women's right to choose, just as, it says, candidate Dan Donovan would do in New York. Called "It Can Happen Here," on YouTube, it ends with: "Think it can't happen here? It can." The visuals on this video are nicely done, but without any spoken audio, the music choice definitely could have been stronger. Still, it's excellent to see the information flowing to audiences.
NARAL Pro-Choice New York also produced a video to draw attention to the anti-choice position of U.S. Senate Candidate Joe DioGuardi. This video has a couple of clips of DioGuardi, screens with text, and a woman's voice narrating. A third style, and one that is probably more familiar to campaign ads.
This 360 embrace of video and online marketing is an interesting direction for this very large and powerful NARAL chapter. Its whole YouTube Channel boasts 48 uploads (some are repeats)now, and, at this rate, good chance that it will keep growing.
Posted by Cindy Cooper
Above: NARAL Pro-Choice New York "No" Video
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Video's Fictions Take on Unreality of Personhood
With early voting already underway in Colorado on a ballot measure that attempts to give fetuses equal rights to living humans, Choice USA released a sweet video, highlighting the absurdity of the measure.
The one-minute video uses a cartoony light focus to highlight serious dangers. Three brief stories depict soft-focus scenes of what it would mean for fetuses to have "personhood" rights, as the anti-abortion ballot measure 62 in Colorado now seeks. In the scenes, a pregnant woman is asked to pay double the share of a bill, buy two tickets to a movie and sign up for doubles rather than singles in tennis. The point is clear: it is nonsensical to give the fetus the same status as a living, breathing woman. In fact, the tag line is: "This video makes no sense; Niether do so-called personhood measures."
The video information links over to a HuffPo article by Kierra Johnson, executive director of the Washington DC-based Choice USA, who explains the problems with the measure. Pro-choice advocates urge a NO vote on Ballot Measure 62 in Colorado.
The personhood measure would outlaw abortion, many forms of contraception and even in vitro fertilization and other reproductive health care. It is the same as a measure soundly defeated two years ago in Colorado -- more than two-thirds of the people voted against it. (During that time period, Words of Choice toured the state to draw attention to the need to mobilize against this measure.) But the anti-abortion advocates came back again like a bad dream.
On RH Reality Check, Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women in NY, does an excellent job of taking apart the arguments of "fetal separatists," showing the real-world consequences of their efforts to gain dominion over women's bodies.
The video, with its tongue-in-cheek style, makes a great way to remind friends in Colorado to VOTE and to VOTE NO on 62.
By the way, if you want to see the totally outrageous things that the opposition -- that is, the people who want this law -- say, see this video. Then VOTE! NO on 62! And contact your friends!
Posted by Cindy Cooper
Above: Screen shot of Choice USA video
The one-minute video uses a cartoony light focus to highlight serious dangers. Three brief stories depict soft-focus scenes of what it would mean for fetuses to have "personhood" rights, as the anti-abortion ballot measure 62 in Colorado now seeks. In the scenes, a pregnant woman is asked to pay double the share of a bill, buy two tickets to a movie and sign up for doubles rather than singles in tennis. The point is clear: it is nonsensical to give the fetus the same status as a living, breathing woman. In fact, the tag line is: "This video makes no sense; Niether do so-called personhood measures."
The video information links over to a HuffPo article by Kierra Johnson, executive director of the Washington DC-based Choice USA, who explains the problems with the measure. Pro-choice advocates urge a NO vote on Ballot Measure 62 in Colorado.
The personhood measure would outlaw abortion, many forms of contraception and even in vitro fertilization and other reproductive health care. It is the same as a measure soundly defeated two years ago in Colorado -- more than two-thirds of the people voted against it. (During that time period, Words of Choice toured the state to draw attention to the need to mobilize against this measure.) But the anti-abortion advocates came back again like a bad dream.
On RH Reality Check, Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women in NY, does an excellent job of taking apart the arguments of "fetal separatists," showing the real-world consequences of their efforts to gain dominion over women's bodies.
The video, with its tongue-in-cheek style, makes a great way to remind friends in Colorado to VOTE and to VOTE NO on 62.
By the way, if you want to see the totally outrageous things that the opposition -- that is, the people who want this law -- say, see this video. Then VOTE! NO on 62! And contact your friends!
Posted by Cindy Cooper
Above: Screen shot of Choice USA video
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Women on Screens Give Injections of Truth to Antis
More GRITtv
Two gripping shows presented by two outstanding women of the news world are thankfully switching around the abortion discussion on screens -- computer TV, community and cable television -- this week and next. Both are presenting hard hitting and in-depth news programs that show the insidiousness of anti-abortion campaigners.
On GritTV host Laura Flanders explores with investigative reporter Charles Stuart the tactics of white anti-abortion backers who are trying to drive a wedge through the Black community with sensational anti-abortion ads that use the language of the Civil Rights Movement. Their true goal: to undermine support for the Obama administration, according to the series. (See trailer above.)
Called "Conspiracy Tactics," GritTV writes: "Producer Charlie Stuart unravels a right-wing deception that is attacking reproductive freedom and breaking up Barack Obama's voting base by equating fetal rights with civil rights." The first segment of this five-part series has already aired, and, yes, thankfully, includes prominent extended interviews with big-picture thinker, Loretta Ross, co-founder of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective in Atlanta. In response to the incursion into their community, Ross and other reproductive justice advocates have formed a new group, Trust Black Women.
Watch the first segment of 'Conspiracy Tactics' here. (Posted above, trailer only.)
On MSNBC Rachel Maddow is presenting an hour-long documentary about the murder of Dr. George Tiller on Monday, October 25 at 9 pm. Called “The Assassination of Dr. Tiller,” it will look at his murder, the real-time stalking of Dr. Tiller, the hounding by television host Bill O'Reilly, and air an unseen 1993 interview of Tiller after a previous assassination attempt.
An online trailer presents a gripping -- and gory -- story, but one that desperately needs to be told by a sensitive teller. According to Maddow's blog, the documentary by Peacock Productions TV shows that Dr. Tiller's murder didn't happen in a vacuum, but grew out of the concerted anti-abortion campaign that targeted him and others in the community.
You can take a first look at the "The Assassination of Dr. Tiller" on Rachel Maddow's blog ... but here is a warning: it's a tough reminder of the ugliness that upended Dr. Tiller's life.
ADDED 10/23: On October 22, Rachel Maddow also did an extremely important segment discussing now "wanted" posters targeting abortion doctors.
Posted by Cindy Cooper
Above: Trailer from "Conspiracy Tactics," GritTV
Two gripping shows presented by two outstanding women of the news world are thankfully switching around the abortion discussion on screens -- computer TV, community and cable television -- this week and next. Both are presenting hard hitting and in-depth news programs that show the insidiousness of anti-abortion campaigners.
On GritTV host Laura Flanders explores with investigative reporter Charles Stuart the tactics of white anti-abortion backers who are trying to drive a wedge through the Black community with sensational anti-abortion ads that use the language of the Civil Rights Movement. Their true goal: to undermine support for the Obama administration, according to the series. (See trailer above.)
Called "Conspiracy Tactics," GritTV writes: "Producer Charlie Stuart unravels a right-wing deception that is attacking reproductive freedom and breaking up Barack Obama's voting base by equating fetal rights with civil rights." The first segment of this five-part series has already aired, and, yes, thankfully, includes prominent extended interviews with big-picture thinker, Loretta Ross, co-founder of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective in Atlanta. In response to the incursion into their community, Ross and other reproductive justice advocates have formed a new group, Trust Black Women.
Watch the first segment of 'Conspiracy Tactics' here. (Posted above, trailer only.)
On MSNBC Rachel Maddow is presenting an hour-long documentary about the murder of Dr. George Tiller on Monday, October 25 at 9 pm. Called “The Assassination of Dr. Tiller,” it will look at his murder, the real-time stalking of Dr. Tiller, the hounding by television host Bill O'Reilly, and air an unseen 1993 interview of Tiller after a previous assassination attempt.
An online trailer presents a gripping -- and gory -- story, but one that desperately needs to be told by a sensitive teller. According to Maddow's blog, the documentary by Peacock Productions TV shows that Dr. Tiller's murder didn't happen in a vacuum, but grew out of the concerted anti-abortion campaign that targeted him and others in the community.
You can take a first look at the "The Assassination of Dr. Tiller" on Rachel Maddow's blog ... but here is a warning: it's a tough reminder of the ugliness that upended Dr. Tiller's life.
ADDED 10/23: On October 22, Rachel Maddow also did an extremely important segment discussing now "wanted" posters targeting abortion doctors.
Posted by Cindy Cooper
Above: Trailer from "Conspiracy Tactics," GritTV
Thursday, October 07, 2010
On the Wall: Philly Reproductive Justice Art Show
The Reproductive Justice Art Extravaganza displayed the work of 20 artists at the Art by Design Gallery in Philadelphia on September 25, the culmination of a call for art in celebration of the Women's Medical Fund 25th Anniversary. Approximately 125 people joined in an evening of art and entertainment.
According to blogger Amanda Brezicky at Feminists for Choice, the program's Award for Traditional Media went to Heather Keith Freeman for "Not Yours" (pictured), and the Award for Photography to Heather Ault for her print series on contraception, 4,000 Years for Choice.
Other artists whose work was shown at the gallery event include: Fatima Adamu, Amanda Brezicky, Sarahlyn Daniels, Diane Diffenderfer, Tricia Earl, Deborah Fine, Lauren Hansen-Flaschen, Pooja Jain, Amber Johnston, Jude Lange, Leila Macbeth, Sofya Mirvis, Abbe Mogel, Shayna Nagel, Beth Shapiro Prusky, Lauren Rinaldi, Robin Mann Robison, Martha Solomon.
The celebration also featured a belly-dancing performance by Charly Brownskin, sex-ed burlesque by Chlamydia Dell’Arte, scenes from "The Waiting Room" by Megan Smith, and spoken-word artists Ms. Wise and Ms. Misconception of "Pussies, Pens & Politics."
The Women’s Medical Fund provides direct financial assistance and other support to low-income women and girls in Southeastern Pennsylvania who wish to terminate a pregnancy but cannot afford a safe, legal abortion. Event organizers were: Steph Herold and Vanessa Zoltan (co-chirs), Susan Schewel, Michelle Kinsey Bruns, Jasmine Collier, Erin-Aja Grant, Julie Howard, Shayna Israel, Farrah Parkes, Tracy Tripp.
Posted by Cindy Cooper
Special thanks to Amanda Brezinsky, Feminists for Choice
Pic above: "Not Yours" by Heather Keith Freeman, with permission of artist
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