Lizz Winstead, a famous American comedian, has asked for assistance from her stand-up community to help turn protest into action. For most of the past decade or so, she has been singularly focused on one issue: abortion. The variety show program is how she prefers to deliver her message.
“Don’t be ashamed of having an abortion,” the comedian Joyelle Nicole Johnson said onstage at “Bro v. Wade,” a fundraiser event in Brooklyn that Winstead organized with her group, Abortion Access Front. “Maybe be ashamed of how you got pregnant. I got pregnant the classy way: On the floor. On an Amtrak train. In the handicapped restroom, babeeey!”
Abortion-related humor is nothing new; George Carlin and many others have used it. But Winstead’s objective is more focused: she runs a nonprofit organization that utilizes unexpected resources, like humor and men, to promote abortion as a basic human right and with righteous fervor.
“Politicians aren’t going to save us,” Winstead said. Laughter won’t either. But through her network of grassroot activist, abortion providers, and entertainers, she hopes to shift the narrative surrounding abortion by removing the stigma, and provide newly enthused supporters. “If people have to march one more time, and rage and feel helpless and hopeless, they win,” she said of her anti-abortion opponents. “We need to give people who are, like, ‘What can we do?’ an answer,” she added.
“The more complicated the issues are, the more humor can break things down to their basic points, and clarify things,” W. Kamau Bell, the comedian, CNN host and commentator, said. Especially for topics that have traditionally been deemed uncomfortable, “humor can invite people in.”
Winstead and Abortion Access Front are not attempting to persuade anti-abortion evangelists to modify their positions. She has personally faced backlash since she began performing sets on the subject. She claimed that when her parents were still living, they frequently received calls claiming that their daughter was a baby killer. The fact that they were Catholic “truly terrified them.”
Her performances were boycotted, and intimidation tactics by former employers were used. She said that she “spent a lot of money” to have her private information removed from the internet. She said that as of right now, “there’s no place I can get fired from – come at me, I don’t care.”
Winstead remarked that “we are more motivated to fight and stay in the fight” while working together and being relentless.
“Don’t be ashamed of having an abortion,” the comedian Joyelle Nicole Johnson said onstage at “Bro v. Wade,” a fundraiser event in Brooklyn that Winstead organized with her group, Abortion Access Front. “Maybe be ashamed of how you got pregnant. I got pregnant the classy way: On the floor. On an Amtrak train. In the handicapped restroom, babeeey!”
Abortion-related humor is nothing new; George Carlin and many others have used it. But Winstead’s objective is more focused: she runs a nonprofit organization that utilizes unexpected resources, like humor and men, to promote abortion as a basic human right and with righteous fervor.
“Politicians aren’t going to save us,” Winstead said. Laughter won’t either. But through her network of grassroot activist, abortion providers, and entertainers, she hopes to shift the narrative surrounding abortion by removing the stigma, and provide newly enthused supporters. “If people have to march one more time, and rage and feel helpless and hopeless, they win,” she said of her anti-abortion opponents. “We need to give people who are, like, ‘What can we do?’ an answer,” she added.
“The more complicated the issues are, the more humor can break things down to their basic points, and clarify things,” W. Kamau Bell, the comedian, CNN host and commentator, said. Especially for topics that have traditionally been deemed uncomfortable, “humor can invite people in.”
Winstead and Abortion Access Front are not attempting to persuade anti-abortion evangelists to modify their positions. She has personally faced backlash since she began performing sets on the subject. She claimed that when her parents were still living, they frequently received calls claiming that their daughter was a baby killer. The fact that they were Catholic “truly terrified them.”
Her performances were boycotted, and intimidation tactics by former employers were used. She said that she “spent a lot of money” to have her private information removed from the internet. She said that as of right now, “there’s no place I can get fired from – come at me, I don’t care.”
Winstead remarked that “we are more motivated to fight and stay in the fight” while working together and being relentless.
