Jennifer Lawrence Defends Planned Parenthood As Obama And Clinton Urge Supreme Court Not To Cut Funding
Jennifer Lawrence has spoken out in defence of women’s right to birth control, reports Time.
In an interview with Glamour magazine, “the candid movie star affirmed her reputation for being an outspoken and passionate advocate on women’s issues.”
The Oscar-winning actress defended the family planning organization Planned Parenthood and revealed how it helped during her teenage years. Raised in a religious household, Lawrence described how Planned Parenthood was the only way she could get safe access to birth control.
“My mom was really religious with me when I was young. She’s not so much anymore. And I wouldn’t have been able to get birth control if it weren’t for Planned Parenthood. I wouldn’t have been able to get condoms and birth control and all these things I needed as a normal teenager who was growing up in a Jesus house.”
Last year, Lawrence penned an essay for Lena Dunham’s Lenny newsletter on the gender pay gap in Hollywood, a move that attracted much attention and widespread praise.
Lawrence was incensed after emails unearthed during the Sony hack uncovered that she was being paid less than her male co-stars in American Hustle, Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale, and Jeremy Renner, something she had been unaware of.
Now Lawrence is using her status as one of the world’s most respected and well-known actresses to defend women’s rights on contraception and birth control. Lawrence even attributed her career as “a successful woman, who has not had a pregnancy” to Planned Parenthood and questioned what bad could come from “supplying people with birth control, condoms, Pap smears, and cancer screenings.”
Planned Parenthood has rarely been out of the news over the last six months, and a recent Politico poll showed roughly 70 percent of registered American voters believe the government should not restrict birth control.
Despite this public support for access to birth control, Planned Parenthood has been the focus of political manoeuvring by Republican lawmakers and private bodies, who want to cut federal funding for the organization.
Planned Parenthood provides reproductive health services and breast cancer screening for women across the country and has more than 800 clinics in the United States with an operating budget of $1 billion, according to the Turning Point Pregnancy Resource Center.
U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, Jr. wrote in the government’s brief that restrictions in the 2013 law “do not serve—in fact, they disserve—the government’s interest in protecting women’s health,” leaving many Texan women with a constitutional right that “exists in theory but not in fact.”
In a statement, Hillary Clinton also criticized the Texas case, which is set to be heard by the Supreme Court on March 2, warning of the “need to protect and advance reproductive rights, not allow politicians to interfere in women’s personal health decisions.”
After Hillary Clinton’s repeated defence of Planned Parenthood, NARAL yesterday endorsed her as their Democratic presidential candidate, citing a demonstrated record of fighting for “reproductive freedom and economic justice.”
NARAL said it would mobilize its field operation in Iowa, which holds the election’s first nominating event on February 1 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and would also run print and online ads in support of Clinton in the state.
[Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images]
