For 15 years, I’ve done what most HR professionals shy away from — talk about abortion at work. And not everyone liked that. People would say things like, “Ew,” “Don’t talk about that,” “Our organization isn’t political” or “What does abortion have to do with work?”
Every time I discussed it, I said that if people are interested in closing the pay gap and advancing gender equality at their organizations, we have to talk about abortion. We must understand that a woman has the right to do with her body and life as she chooses. But now, in 2022, the Supreme Court took away reproductive rights for women on the federal level, which has led to everybody talking about abortion.
My guest is Mary Summers, who is joined by her collaborator, Karen Weinstein. In 1970, they made the movie “Abortion and Women’s Rights 1970.” Back then, the movie spoke to the need for safe, legal abortion and the broader fight for reproductive justice. In this episode, we discuss what the film is all about, why it needed to include stories from Black and brown women, and what we can do moving forward.
How can you have women in leadership positions, as high up as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, but their value to society is first viewed through their uterus? How can you have a woman leading an organization but not be able to leave the state for fear she may get an abortion? It doesn’t make sense, and we can create the change necessary.
Punk Rock HR is proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is a B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head over to thestarrconspiracy.com.
Stories Below the Surface
“Abortion and Women’s Rights 1970” was created to showcase women’s challenges in the years before the Roe v Wade court decision. With this film, the hope was to shine an unfiltered light on what women were facing in their struggle to guarantee reproductive rights.
“That title reflects the fact that it was very important to us to put the issue of abortion in a broader context of what was then the women’s liberation movement, the effort to fight for equality for women in all kinds of ways — from daycare to equal pay for equal work, to access to a wider range of jobs, to sharing housework,” Mary shares. “And we wanted to get the date in there because that was such a critical time for the movement for abortion rights and access, and for women’s rights more generally.”
The film’s stories were intersectional even if the world wasn’t. Everyone who worked on the film had been active in political or social movements, Mary says. “When people heard that we were making a film about abortion, we started getting tapes in the mail. I mean, that was back in the day before the internet,” Mary explains.
“I think that the reality is we were very aware that, even though it was so hard for middle-class women to get abortions then, and they went through horrible experiences that we shared and talked about and that are in the film, that the deaths from abortion were overwhelmingly of women of color and poor women,” Mary says.
Even in the years after Roe v. Wade, Mary says, not every woman had the same access and the same autonomy, especially if they didn’t have money or were women of color.
Stigmas That Linger
Even women obtaining legal abortions have horrible stories to share, including walking through picket lines, enduring postpartum depression, feeling shamed, stigmatized and alone. and couldn’t talk to anyone. This was true even after Roe v. Wade, but especially before.
“There was a stigma to the whole thing. And so I think what is important is that women begin to talk if they want to about their stories, but that they become more public,” Karen says.
“We do want to honor and hear the stories of women who went through hell in association with their abortion experiences. And we want to understand everything about that and change it and figure out how to support women in the future,” Mary says. “But one of the reasons we ended up not showing our film very much after we first made it was that it did make a legal abortion look so scary. And after Roe v. Wade, the important message to get out was abortion is a safe, legal experience, much safer than childbirth actually.”
Legal abortion is a safe process that has evolved over the decades. While women can find it more challenging today to obtain an abortion, there are safer, less intrusive methods available for many women.
“One of the other key changes that’s happened with abortion that we haven’t yet talked about is the fact that there are now medication abortions, and the majority of abortions are medication abortions now. That is even safer and easier in many cases,” Mary says. “Women can have them in their own homes. Pills can come in the mail. It can be a very ordinary, reasonable experience.”
The Path to a Better Tomorrow
What can women do in this uncertain, even scary era? One place to start is with electing politicians who support abortion rights..
“I have to say Democrats because of the Republicans’ position on abortion,” Karen says. “I really strongly hope that people will help get out the vote and go vote. That’s the only way, or that’s one of the strongest ways, that I think we can change what’s going on. So I support that.”
Getting people who care about women’s reproductive rights is one step. The other is to ensure that the conversation keeps going and is normalized. Even in 2022, there are still people who rather not talk about abortion or don’t understand the significance of abortions and women’s rights. Sharing your story isn’t easy but can make a huge difference, even if you don’t see it immediately.
“It seems to me that it’s a private issue, but the way that it’s being dealt with today, it has to be the case that women come out and talk about their experiences, what they have happened to them, but also what they hope for their children, their daughters, their granddaughters,” Karen explains. “So I think it has to become more public, but it’s up to each person because it is a fairly private experience.”
[bctt tweet=”‘It’s been harder and harder for women to find a place to have an abortion. But again, it is so important to emphasize that it doesn’t have to be.’ ~ Mary Summers, filmmaker and senior fellow at @Penn. Tune in to the latest episode of #PunkRockHR! ” via=”no”]
People in This Episode
Full Transcript
Laurie Ruettimann:
This episode of Punk Rock HR is sponsored by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is the B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head on over to thestarrconspiracy.com.
Hey everybody. I’m Laurie Ruettimann. Welcome back to Punk Rock HR. For the past 15 years, I’ve done something that no other HR professional was doing. I was talking about abortion at work, and I would hear all sorts of feedback like “Ew” and “Don’t talk about that” and “Our organization isn’t political” and “What does abortion have to do with work?” And I would make the case that if you’re interested in closing the pay gap and you advance gender equality in your organization, you have to recognize that a woman has a right to do with her body and her life as she chooses.
So flash forward to 2022, and the Supreme Court took away reproductive rights for women. And everybody’s talking about abortion. And the question becomes, how can you have women in positions of leadership, how can you have women CEOs when their value to society is first viewed through their uterus?
How can you have a woman lead an organization but not be able to potentially leave the state for fear that she may get an abortion? It just doesn’t make any sense. How do you have a woman who’s head of a Fortune 500 company and is supposed to be the be-all, end-all power and authority, and yet she doesn’t have autonomy — not only over her body, but over her life. I cannot wrap my head around it, but I’m glad everybody is talking about it.
And on today’s show, I have two guests who are absolutely at the center of this conversation and have been for over 50 years. My guests today are Mary Summers, and at the end of the podcast, we are joined by her collaborator, Karen Weinstein. In 1970, they made a movie called “Abortion and Women’s Rights 1970.” It’s a film that serves as a powerful reminder of the conditions and demands that inspired the movement for abortion rights 50 years ago.
And the movie back then spoke to the need for safe, legal abortion and the broader fight for reproductive justice. The movie is only 28 minutes long, and they’ve re-released it at abortionandwomensrights1970.com. And I have them on today to talk about what the movie is all about, how it was an interesting impression, and having conversations about Black and brown women and some of the issues around reproductive justice back then, and also what we can do moving forward. It’s a real interesting conversation. I mean, these women have seen it all and have experienced it all. Both of them speak openly about their own experiences with abortion, one normal and kind of ordinary and the other pre-Roe v. Wade was horrific. So if you’re interested in this discussion, and I would encourage you even if you’re not, to stay tuned, to listen to Mary Summers and Karen Weinstein on this week’s Punk Rock HR.
Hi, Mary, welcome to the podcast.
Mary Summers:
Thank you so much. I’m thrilled to be here.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Sure. Well, we’re pleased to have you here. I wish it could be under other circumstances, but before we get started talking about your work, your film, what’s happening in the world, why don’t you tell everybody who you are?
Mary Summers:
So I’m Mary Summers. I’m a senior fellow in the Fox Leadership Program at the University of Pennsylvania. I wear many different hats, but the key reason I’m here today is because 50 years ago, I made a film about abortion with three other women. None of us had any experience with filmmaking, but we thought it was very important to tell women’s stories with trying to access abortion in their own voices at a time when it was still illegal in most states across the country. We hoped that telling their stories would be useful in the efforts that were going on across the country to get state legislatures to legalize abortion. Within a few years after we finished the film, the Supreme Court had ruled in Roe v. Wade that abortion was legal across the country.
And we all went our separate ways in different careers. Oh, I guess about seven years ago, at this point, we started to realize that we needed to get back together and think about updating the film and getting it back out in the world because access to abortion was becoming more and more limited.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, can you tell us about the title of the film and maybe some of the stories that are in the film, as well?
Mary Summers:
The title of the film is “Abortion and Women’s Rights 1970.” That title reflects the fact that it was very important to us to put the issue of abortion in a broader context of what was then the women’s liberation movement, the effort to fight for equality for women in all kinds of ways — from daycare to equal pay for equal work, to access to wider range of jobs, to sharing housework. And we wanted to get the date in there because that was such a critical time for the movement for abortion rights and access. and for women’s rights more generally.
Laurie Ruettimann:
I was surprised by the stories in the movie, and it’s a touching movie. It’s not very long. It’s maybe a half an hour long and —
Mary Summers:
28 minutes, yeah.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah, 28 minutes. But the stories were powerful and meaningful, and maybe we can talk about a few, but the other thing I want to just quickly mention is that, at a time when the world wasn’t very intersectional, the stories are intersectional. So can you tell us about them?
Mary Summers:
So we were a group of young white women. To us, there seemed to be significant age differences. Like I had just graduated from college and some of the women were maybe, oh, I don’t know, eight years older, were married and had children. And all of us in one way or another had been active in the civil rights and anti-war movements. And were getting increasingly interested in the women’s movement. We were very aware that — I mean, I guess I would disagree that it wasn’t an intersectional world in a way. I mean, I think that the reality is we were very aware that even though it was so hard for middle-class women to get abortions then, and they went through horrible experiences that we shared and talked about and that are in the film, that the deaths from abortion were overwhelmingly of women of color and poor women.
And that those were different stories that — we primarily had the stories of middle-class women. Like literally when people heard that we were making a film about abortion, we started getting tapes in the mail. I mean, that was back in the day before the internet, when people wanted their stories to be told. There was one extraordinary white working-class woman from east Boston, who somebody had met, who wanted to tell her story. But again, we were aware that we did not have the stories of women of color. We thought it was very important to do everything we could to raise up the issues that we knew faced women of color. Karen, one of us was in Newsreel, which was an organization that was making films with people of color, that we got footage from them to speak to issues faced by Puerto Rican women and Black women. And we just did everything we could to make sure that a range of voices were in the movie.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, that’s what really impressed me. I think at a time when the women’s movement may have not been labeled intersectional, you were going above and beyond to get those stories in. And the other thing that really struck me is that you were talking about a Black maternal mortality crisis in 1970. And here it’s 2022, and Vice President Kamala Harris is talking about, among many others, are talking about the same things. So this movie and the stories in it really told me that the old saying is true, “Everything old is new again.” And we think we’ve made gains in the world, but those gains have been so temporary, right? And when they come for one of us, they start to come for all of us. I don’t know. What do you think about that?
Mary Summers:
I do think that’s really true. When I try to think, how is it that we ended up being at the point we are now where we’ve lost the right to abortion in the United States. And why is that? To me, I don’t want to deny that we won incredible victories that made a huge difference in the lives of many, many, many women. I mean, for 50 years, many women in this country have easily had access to abortion in a way that was not true when I was young. But when I was young, and we were fighting for that right in the context of a nation that had become more equal in many, many, many ways — greater income equality, everybody’s votes were rising. The civil rights movement had led to huge strides. We had a huge amount of hope and conviction that we could change the world for the better for everyone.
And I do think that when we won the right to abortion, within only a 10-year span, we were moving into a world where there was huge reaction against the whole range of those victories. And we moved into a world where, basically, with Ronald Reagan’s election, where people were saying, government is the problem, all problems should be solved through markets, which worked well for people who had money — or it worked to some degree for people who had money, but did not work at all for people who didn’t. So there was so much disillusionment that the idea that some upper-middle-class women or middle-class women now had choice. It didn’t mean a lot to many other people, people who had lost their homes, their pensions, their jobs with benefits. Choice didn’t mean a whole lot. And you can see the growing appeal to the right-to-life movement in that context. If you don’t have a sense of we’re all fighting for everybody to have better lives, then this very abstract idea of what it is to fight for life becomes more appealing.
Laurie Ruettimann:
I also found it interesting in the movie that you talk about women’s rights and abortion in a broader context. It’s not just about freeing a woman so she can go have an abortion. It’s about giving her the right to autonomy in other areas. Can you talk about that?
Mary Summers:
So again, this was critical to the movie for us. I think our favorite line in the movie is when you talk about abortion, you end up having to talk about everything, because we were aware that there was a movement for abortion rights in those days that were led by a movement called zero-population growth, who basically had an argument that it was very important that poor people have fewer children. And basically, they weren’t fighting for the rights and interests of low-income people and people of color. It’s not like every idea they had was bad, but it was very important to us that our movie not be used by people who only wanted to argue that women should have fewer children. It was very important to us that women who wanted children be able to have them in circumstances that would support them. And that women who wanted to have children and fulfilling work, be able to do both. That was our vision of the kind of world that we wanted to raise up and fight for. And that you couldn’t raise up that vision only by talking about abortion.
Laurie Ruettimann:
It’s also very interesting. One of the storytellers in your movie talks about the challenges of abortion and birth control in these marginalized communities and how birth control was tested in low-income and poor communities. And how if you’re Black or brown, abortion could be seen as genocide. And that’s why it’s important to talk about abortion more globally as women’s rights and the autonomy to do what she chooses, if she’s low income, to allow her to have eight kids, if that’s what she wants to do. And if she’s affluent, to have no kids, if that’s what she wants to do. So did I get that right, that take on that?
Mary Summers:
Exactly. I think it’s incredibly important, and it’s an incredibly important issue to continue to talk about in a way in the context of solidarity with women across race, across class now is — so many people focus on the fact that women of color have more abortions than white women and poor women have more abortions than wealthy women. And people on both sides talk about those numbers. And to me, those of us who believe that abortion rights and access are incredibly important to all women need to be very clear that that’s not the only thing we’re fighting for. That we don’t want poor women to be forced into having abortion simply because they can’t afford to have children. That’s the opposite of what we want.
Laurie Ruettimann:
How do we fix this?
Mary Summers:
When you think about how are we going to change the current situation, where this country is so divided over this issue of abortion, to me, I think we do need to look at what are the big changes this country has made, and how have we done it? And for sure, one of the key ways is around gay rights and gay marriage. That is a transformation that, if you had told me, when I was making this film, that this country would embrace gay marriage, I would not have believed you. And here we are today, that’s been achieved.
And when you think, how was it achieved? I do think a huge part of it was so many people starting to talk both about the fact that they were gay and about their gay children and their gay aunts and their gay grandmothers. And people started to recognize the humanity of gay people. This is the world we want to live in, is one in which our children are included, and where they can have access to happy, fulfilling lives, and where being gay is not associated with all this stigma. And the reality is that we have not achieved that with abortion. Most people are not telling the stories of their abortions and sharing the stories of their abortions. I mean, I think it’s happening a lot more now. That is becoming part of the movement to try to, once more, save abortion rights and access.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, the interesting thing about that is that when people do share their abortion stories, often even in a time when abortion was legal, they’re terrible stories, because they had to go through a picket line. Or they had postpartum after the procedure, and nobody addressed the hormonal drop, and they didn’t get the mental health resources that they needed, or they were shamed and didn’t feel like they could talk to anybody. So while we are starting to see some of the younger generation talk about abortion in a different way, and some older women like me — I’m 47 years old. I talk about having an abortion all the time — I think it’s often wrapped up in the stigma. And what we don’t get, where I’m going with this, are just normal, ordinary abortion stories, which very often they are normal and ordinary. So what do you think about that?
Mary Summers:
I think that’s really important. Everything you’re saying is true. We do want to honor and hear the stories of women who went through hell in association with their abortion experiences. And we want to understand everything about that and change it and figure out how to support women in the future. But one of the reasons we ended up not showing our film very much after we first made it was that it did make a legal abortion look so scary.
And after Roe v. Wade, the important message to get out was abortion is a safe, legal experience, much safer than childbirth, actually. And there was actually an extraordinary growth of abortion clinics across the country up through the ‘80s. I had a safe, easy legal abortion in the mid-’80s with no demonstrators outside. Just go to the well-run clinic, sort of the model of how you would want to receive any kind of medical care.
I think it’s very important for people to realize that access to that kind of abortion has been losing that for a long time now. Fewer and fewer women, especially in these red states that have been passing more and more laws requiring clinics be associated with hospitals and doctors, be associated with hospitals, and all these rules that make running that kind of clinic more and more expensive when, again, abortion is safer than childbirth. It’s been harder and harder for women to find a place to have an abortion. But again, it is so important to emphasize that it doesn’t have to be. And one of the other key changes that’s happened with abortion that we haven’t yet talked about is the fact that there are now medication abortions, and the majority of abortions are medication abortions now. That is even safer and easier in many cases. Women can have them in their own homes. Pills can come in the mail. It can be a very ordinary, reasonable experience.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Absolutely. Everybody, this is a first for the Punk Rock HR Podcast. We’ve had a guest join in as we’re starting to wrap up. So we have a collaborator with Mary. Karen, why don’t you introduce yourself?
Karen Weinstein:
Yeah. Hi, I’m Karen Weinstein, and I worked on the film, and I’m Mary’s colleague. We worked on it together.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, Mary and Karen, as we wrap up the conversation, I would love your insights on what listeners can do to defend and promote abortion rights and access today in this crazy world we live in.
Mary Summers:
So I hope your listeners will look at our film, which is available for free. Go to abortionandwomensrights1970.com. And there’s a link there, says, “Get involved.” And there, there’s such a huge range of ways to support abortion rights and access that go from supporting individual women — you can get training as a counselor with helping get medication to women who need it, to lobbying, to electoral work. There’s organizations, links to those organizations and links to ways to work with them, not just to give money to them. We need lots of money, but we also need people supporting individual women and being involved in lobbying and being involved in electing officials who will support abortion rights and access.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, Karen, I wonder if you could add just a little bit more insight from your perspective. What can people do today to get involved and to right some of the wrongs that are happening?
Karen Weinstein:
Well, I firmly believe that helping to get people elected. I have to say Democrats because of the Republicans’ position on abortion. I really strongly hope that people will help get out the vote and go vote. That’s the only way, or that’s one of the strongest ways, that I think we can change what’s going on. So I support that.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Earlier, we talked about more and more people having conversations about their gay uncle or their gay grandparent, their queer cousin, and that kind of normalized gay rights, gay marriage, even though they’re coming for that next. I wonder if one of the ways that we move forward is by encouraging more people to tell their abortion stories.
Karen Weinstein:
Well, that’s a really interesting question. Of course, I had an illegal abortion before Roe v. Wade, and it was a very frightening experience. I was blindfolded and could not see who the person was who was giving me the abortion — could have been a doctor, could have not. And so it was a dreadful experience to go through. But what I realized before I got involved with the film is that I really wasn’t talking about it. I was ashamed. There was a stigma to the whole thing. And so I think what is important is that women begin to talk, if they want to about their stories, but that they become more public. I do think that that’s helpful. It seems to me that it’s a private issue, but the way that it’s being dealt with today, it has to be the case that women come out and talk about their experiences, what they have happened to them, but also what they hope for their children, their daughters, their granddaughters. So I think it has to become more public, but it’s up to each person because it is a fairly private experience.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, I’m so appreciative that you both took time out of your schedules to come on the podcast today. And I just want to thank you again for sharing your stories. We’ll encourage all of our listeners to go and watch the movie as I have. It’s incredible. It’s so interesting to look back at history and see history repeating itself. So thanks again for trusting me with your story and appearing on the podcast today.
Karen Weinstein:
Thank you.
Mary Summers:
Thank you so much.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Hey everybody, I hope you enjoyed this episode of Punk Rock HR. We are proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is the B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head on over to thestarrconspiracy.com. Punk Rock HR is produced and edited by Rep Cap with special help from Michael Thibodeaux and Devon McGrath. For more information, show notes, links, and resources, head on over to punkrockhr.com. Now that’s all for today and I hope you enjoyed it. We’ll see you next time on Punk Rock HR.
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