By Luchina Fisher, co-executive producer, co-writer of Birthright: A War Story
“People Need to Take to the Streets.”
That was Civia’s constant refrain to audiences when we toured with “Birthright: A War Story” at theaters across the country.
When we made the film in 2017, there was a feeling that too few people were paying attention to the slow chipping away of women’s reproductive health care since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. After Trump was elected and he appointed two conservative justices to the Supreme Court, that began to change. Suddenly everyone wanted to know, how did we get here? Our film connected the dots, and it left viewers with a warning: that this war of the womb extends far beyond access to abortion.
Three years after the film was released, we are seeing the far-reaching consequences of this religious conservative policing of women’s bodily autonomy. It shows up in the case currently before the Supreme Court that could make it more difficult for some women to get birth control. And it shows up in Trump’s recent ruling that removes nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people when it comes to health care and health insurance.
But we are also seeing an incredible movement of people finally taking to the streets. It comes after the killing of George Floyd, the final straw in a string of murders of black men and women at the hands of police and white vigilantes. And, in this reckoning, more people are waking up to the realization that all of these civil liberties — race, class, gender, sexual identity and orientation — are related and often interconnected. When we fight for one, we fight for all.
And so, as I take to the streets with my daughter, who identifies as transgender, and my two sons, I know that I am fighting for their rights to live and control their own bodies. And I am fighting for yours too.