With the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs Wade, many women’s rights to a safe abortion procedure are in jeopardy, and Variety is reporting that those who work in Hollywood are fighting back.
This past week over 400 female television series creators and showrunners sent out letters to the most powerful Hollywood studio executives, calling for safety protocols to be made for their pregnant employees in states where the procedure has been made illegal. Some showrunners and creators that attached their signatures to the letter are big names like Shonda Rhimes, Issa Rae, Natasha Lyonne,Ava DuVernay, Mindy Kaling, Elizabeth Meriwether, Pamela Adlon, and hundreds of others.
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Following the women’s cry for change, men in the entertainment business have followed closely behind them. The same companies have now received letters from 594 men, including names likeNopedirector Jordan Peele, J.J. Abrams, Greg Berlanti, Donald Glover, Aaron Sorkin, David E. Kelley,Thor: Love and Thunderdirector Taika Waititi and Ryan Murphy. The letter was sent to companies like Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, Apple, NBC Universal, Amazon, Lionsgate, and AMC. The letter from the men similar to the women call for change and made not to statethat the men stand with their female, transgender, and non-binary colleagues calling for a change in regard to the abortion crisis and stating they want a response from the companies. The full list of signatories can be found atVariety.
Another letter was issued to these television and film companies on Monday, pushing for the same change as the one before it, calling for a concrete response from the companies by 11:59 pm on August 10th. The letter also stressed this issue as an “emergency” for workers who reside in states such as Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, which will have anti-abortion laws instated soon by the Dobbs decision, which will lead to these womenlosing their rights to a safe and legalabortion procedure.
As the signers of these letters await a response from these companies, their cry for change has managed to send shock waves through the entertainment business and has brought some needed attention to the pressing issue that is abortion laws in the United States. These men stepping up and backing their female co-workers provides an ounce of hope and allows women who are struggling to grapple with the Supreme Court’s decision, that they are in no way alone, and that this is everyone’s fight to have theserights reinstated, not just women.
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