Keeping It Real: MTV Follows Abortion Decisions

Finally. A popular television show addressed abortion with dignity and compassion. MTV's 'No Easy Decision,' a spinoff of '16 and Pregnant' followed a young woman and her partner who decide on an abortion. The teen parents already have one child and are gaining footing, if barely. They conclude that they want to give the child they already have the best chance in life and that having another baby will make that impossible.

The MTV episode can be viewed online, along with interviews of two other young women who chose abortion. Extended interviews are available online, as well.

Popular culture has pushed aside respectful discussions of abortion, even though they are common and safe. In 'Words of Choice II,' we perform a selection called 'At the Movies,' by Penny Lane, a quirky revue of the treatment of abortion in popular culture through the years.

The MTV segment should take its place as one for all teens to watch. The young women figure out each step -- talking to a partner, a friend, a parent, going online, listening to a counselor and just thinking it through. One describes going to cour to get a judicial bypass. The young woman who is featured, Markai, notes that it is all about "What if ..." -- and, she says, "I want to make the best 'what if'?" Her partner, James, says at the end, "God gave us brains so we could make our own decisions."

The film's producers deserve special credit for jobs well done. Lauren Dolgen as listed as executive producer and as the developer of the concept, and Liz Gateley is also an executive producer. The other top producers who are listed are Morgan Freeman and Dia Sokel Savage.

Comments on the segment can be made at the show's site, and here at 16andloved, a special site set up by Exhale, a post-abortion counseling program, that is mentioned on the program and also set up live blogging and tweeting.

In "No Easy Decision": MTV Takes on Abortion in On the Issues Magazine, Sarah Flint Erdreich gives an excellent overview of the show and its placement in popular culture.

"Abortion has long been the third rail of American pop culture. 'Maude' may have chosen to have an abortion in 1972, but in the decades since, few female characters on mainstream television shows have made the same choice. (Interestingly, this is an area where soap operas have been much more progressive – in 1964, a char-acter on 'Another World' had an abortion; nine years later, 'All My Children' featured a storyline that followed Erica Kane's legal abortion.) While unexpected pregnancies continue to be a staple of dramas and comedies alike, this plot device is usually resolved one of two ways:continuing the pregnancy or choosing abortion, only to have a conveniently timed miscarriage instead.

Yet this past year has seen a shift in how abortion is depicted on TV. On the glossy medical soap 'Private Practice,' several successful physicians shared their personal abortion experiences when a teenager chose to continue her unplanned pregnancy, despite her anti-choice mother's objections. The critically acclaimed drama 'Friday Night Lights' went even further, featuring a refreshingly progressive storyline in which a 16-year-old high school student, herself the child of a teenage mother, opted to have an abortion.

The popular MTV series '16 & Pregnant,' which recently completed its second high-rated season, proudly proclaims that it shows teen pregnancy in all its complicated, relationship-destroying, education-derailing glory. Yet not one episode has included a substantial conversation about choice – until now. A special program on December 28, 2010 called 'No Easy Decision' followed the stories of three young women who had chosen abortion.

Hosted by Dr. Drew Pinsky, the show examined the issue of abortion through the experiences of Markai, who was on the most recent season of "16 and Pregnant"; Katie, who had an abortion before her senior year of college; and Natalia, who became pregnant when she was 17. The half-hour show, which aired without commercials, spent about fifteen minutes on Markai's unplanned pregnancy....

FULL ARTICLE HERE.

Another excellent commentary, this one by Sarah Selzter, is in the Washington Post. A story about Markai and the "controversy" is here. To read about the unhappiness of the anti-abortion crowd that is shocked, shocked, shocked about a sensible discussion about abortion, here is a piece at Life News.

Dr. Drew Pinsky, who hosts the show, does an excellent job in guiding the interviews of the teens, thanking them at the end for "allowing this conversation be share what is real and human in people's lives." That sentiment is doubled for MTV and the show's producers.

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Pictured above: A screenshot from MTV "No Easy Decision" as Markai goes online to learn more about abortion options.

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Activist Writer: Remembering Grace Paley

This week marks the anniversary of the birthday of poet-writer-humanist-activist Grace Paley. Of course, Paley was also pro-choice and a feminist. Although she died three years ago, Paley's ability to see the ground and the sky at the same time, to reach into her heart and to inspire others with her words is very much alive. What better time than the end of a difficult year to be reminded of her words-in-activism?

Judith Arcana, author of the literary biography, Grace Paley's Life Stories, takes this week to do just that.

In a radio interview on KBOO-FM in Oregon, Arcana tells tales and reads from Paley's poetry and writings. Listen here: Radio Stories About On Grace Paley, well-worth a listen.

One of the pieces read on the show is "Responsibility," which was republished in the Spring 2009 edition of On The Issues Magazine, and is excerpted below:

....There is no freedom without fear and bravery there is no
freedom unless
earth and air and water continue and children
also continue
It is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman to keep an eye on
this world and cry out like Cassandra, but be
listened to this time.

Judith also put together some thoughts and activist ideas:

Grace Paley was a great writer, loved and respected all over the world. She was also an activist, working on anti-militarism, the conditions of women’s lives, and urgent environmental issues.

Grace understood that sometimes cops or soldiers in the street are angry or scared enough to be cruel and violent. Yet she said, I don’t think the thing for me has been “civil disobedience” so much as the importance of not asking permission. And, Non-violence does not mean personal safety. Pacifism is not passive-ism.

Grace Paley’s work was writing and political action; she used both to seek truth and justice. Born in 1922, she died in 2007.

Some of the things she wrote and said:

* To get birth control [when I was young] … you had to be older and married. You
couldn’t get anything in drugstores, unless you were terribly sick and had to
buy a diaphragm because your womb was falling out. … I was eighteen, and it was
1940 when I tiptoed in to get a diaphragm. I said I was married. … My generation
– and only in our later years – and the one right after mine have been the only
ones to really enjoy any sexual freedom. The kids have to know that it’s not
just the right to abortion which is essential; it’s their right to a sexual
life.

* Lots of literature comes from … not knowing. It comes from what
you’re curious about. It comes from what obsesses you. It comes from what you
want to know. … You write from what you know, but you write into what you don’t
know.

* You are going to leave the world, right? So you really hate to
leave it in worse shape than you found it. I have a certain degree of
hopefulness, but I don’t think it means anything unless we really continue to
look, to look at the earth, the way poets do.

And a delightful essay, "Grace Paley's True North: Justice in Writing and Action" by Judith Arcana.

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Pictured above, photo of Grace Paley from Judith Arcana website

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The Movement is the Artist: Collective Works

In a fascinating discussion, graphic artist Dara Greenwald narrates a clip from 1973 of a conversation with members of the Women's Graphic Collective in 1973. The clip is on Monthly Review, here and on YouTube, here (screen shot to right from the clips).

Greenwald describes a fascinating theory -- looking at political movements as the producers of art rather than the individual as the producer of the art. This concept may be something especially adaptable to the reproductive freedom movement -- could have profound impact upon it.

Of the movement art, Greenwald asks: "What does that produce? How does it redefine what it means to be an artist?"

Greenwald uses the women's collective in Chicago as her example -- she is discussing the idea in the context of a curators' talk with Josh MacPhee at the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University on January 23, 2009 for the show, Signs of Change, which was also mounted at Exit Art in New York [read a Words of Choiceblog about that here.]

In the clip which Greenwald had recently acquired, the art collective members had come together to create a graphic to support farmworkers who were engaged in a grape and lettuce boycott. "Working collectively is the best way to produce political posters," according to the graphic artists. "There was so much political art that was really down," says one women. "The women's movement was not down -- it was such a high." Other women describe how they didn't really feel like "real" artists, but were empowered by the coming together of women, working on a collective project. "They handed me a hammer," said one woman. "Of course, I could do it -- why not?"

As Greenwood and co-curator MacPhee powerfully remind us: "All images come with a context."

More about the Women's Graphic Collective is online at the Chicago Women's Liberation Union archives. Many of their works have been made re-available.

Dara Greenwald is a media artist who works on video, writing and cultural organizing. A publication from the Signs of Change exhibit has recently been released by AK Press, with 350 posters, prints, photographs, films, videos, music, and ephemera from more than 25 nations and over the past 50 years.

Josh MacPhee, who presents with Greenwald, is a member of the Just Seeds art collective. MacPhee recently released a collection through Feminist Press, Celebrate People's History: The Poster Book of Resistance and Revolution.

More of their curators' conversation is posted here and at related links at the Miller Gallery YouTube channel.

Posted by Cindy Cooper, special thanks for info tips to Carol Hanisch and Ariel Dougherty
Pictured above: Screen shot from Women's Graphic Collective clip

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