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Negative Depiction of Women's Health Clinics Worries Choice Activist
As the former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Gloria Feldt has fought for many years on the front lines of choice. She was a teen mother at sixteen, and later returned to school to earn a degree and work on behalf of women's reproductive rights.
Feldt's take on Juno comes from her own first-hand experiences, and she spoke to me about why the film worries her.
In the film Juno initially plans to have an abortion. But she changes her mind, partly because she has an unpleasant experience at a women's health clinic. The heavily pierced receptionist is barely older than Juno; she's unprofessional, bored and unfeeling. The depiction of the women's clinic is supposed to be comic. But as the former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, you must be bothered by it.
The clinic in Juno is terrible. It's a terribly untrue stereotype. My experience is that the people who work in women's health facilities where abortions are performed are so compassionate. Think about what it takes to work there daily. They have to walk through protesters and picket lines; they have to be committed to what they do. They are passionate in their convictions.
I worked for 22 years for Planned Parenthood affiliates and have seen how people are dedicated to making women feel comfortable.
One man who ran the surgery program (which included abortion and vasectomy) researched what colors were most soothing to women in distress. He found out it was pepto bismol pink and had the walls painted that color.
Patients who come in are in a difficult situation and we try to make it as welcoming to them as possible.
For Juno to deliver that stereotype to audiences shows you one example of how the anti-choice point of view has begun to influence even Hollywood, which everyone regards as left wing. They've gotten their point of view into the intellectual ether of our county.
The screenwriter, Diablo Cody, once worked as a stripper and writes a blog called Ranch. One might expect her to have a liberal attitude but in many ways the views are conservative. Do you have thoughts on this?
It would be amusing if it weren't so distressing that a woman whose profession has been in the sex trade would express this in her writing. I have two thoughts about this:
The first is "Good for her that she has the talent to write a commercially successful film."
The second is that we all have social responsibility for what we communicate through our words. And as a former stripper, of all people she should understand our society's retrograde attitudes toward women and sex...
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Juno is the latest in a series of recent movies in which the heroine, faced with an unexpected pregnancy, chooses not to have an abortion.
Others include Knocked Up, Waitress and Bella.
Dr. Vanessa Cullins, vice president for medical affairs at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said these story lines — generally with upbeat endings — oversimplify the tough choices facing real-life girls and women.
Each year, more than 1 million of them in the United States opt to have an abortion.
"Hollywood is in this for money and entertainment," Cullins said. "They are shying away from having the characters fully explore all their options when faced with an unplanned pregnancy.
"In the real world, it's important to weigh all the possible options and then come up with the best one for the teen, the family and the child," Cullins added. "That will be different for different circumstances."
Cullins expressed hope that the buzz about teen pregnancies would prompt candid conversations between parents and children about relationships, values and how to avoid unintended pregnancies through abstinence or effective contraception.
National statistics released earlier this month showed the teen birth rate on the rise for the first time in 15 years.
Absence of alternatives
Demie Kurz, a sociologist who co-directs the University of Pennsylvania's women's studies program, noted that the Juno heroine and Jamie Lynn Spears come from well-off families and do not represent the many girls from low-income backgrounds who get pregnant.
"Some of them have the babies as part of their path to what they see as adulthood, but they often put their education on hold, and it makes life a lot tougher," Kurz said. "Do we want to put burdens on these teenage girls by encouraging them to think that having a baby is cool?"
She said it was reflective of the U.S. political climate that few movies depict abortion as a valid option.
"There should be a responsibility to portray a young person who makes a reasonable choice to have an abortion, or take the morning-after pill," Kurz said. "The absence of films showing alternatives is really upsetting."
