Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator and Avengers director Joss Whedon has released a new PSA video in support of Planned Parenthood, the reproductive healthcare organisation that has come under fire under Donald Trump’s administration.
For more than 100 years, Planned Parenthood has offered sex education and advice to women and their partners. But under the right-wing fervour gripping American politics, Republicans are redoubling their efforts to close down the non-for-profit organisation.
Through legislative means, Republican leaders are essentially forcing the closure of Planned Parenthood clinics across the United States; in Iowa, for instance, Governor Terry Branstad signed a bill into law that bans women on state benefits from receiving any kind of non-abortion medical care in a clinic that also offers abortions.
That move means Planned Parenthood will now close four clinics in the Midwestern state, a third of Planned Parenthood’s entire presence in Iowa.
As an act of protest, filmmaker Joss Whedon has now added his support to Planned Parenthood, with a short called UNLOCKED.
Planned Parenthood has been around for 100 years. Here’s to fighting for the next 100. Or even not having to. #StandWithPP pic.twitter.com/sjaqtTWBFM
— Joss Whedon (@joss) May 17, 2017
The video mixes three different stories, showing what life would be life if the current push to bring down the organisation should succeed.
One woman is seen on her deathbed, having missed the pap smear that would have caught her cancer. In another, a young woman misses out on a scholarship to university after falling pregnant without the right contraceptive, while in the third, a teenager struggles with how to advise her friend on practising safe sex.
Joss Whedon has a long association for telling female-centric stories in his cinematic and TV output, but has also been a vocal critic of Donald Trump. In the past, certain comments about Ivanka Trump have seen Whedon come in for criticism.
