Aida Rodriguez, Alex English, Amy Hagstrom Miller, Dan Eubanks, David Gunn Jr., Derenda Hancock, DOC NYC, film festivals, Gina Yashere, Greg Proops, Helen Hong, Ian Harvie, Jason Storms, Jaye McBride, Jill Solube, Joyelle Johnson, Kat Green, Laura Chelian, LeRoy Carhart, Lizz Winstead, Mark Hamill, Mehran Khaghani, Moji Alowode-El, movies, Nicole Moore, No One Asked You, Renee Chelian, reviews, Rusty Thomas, Ruth Leitman, Sarah Silverman, Shannon Brewer, Solange Azor, Steve Hopkins
November 5, 2024
by Carla Hay
Directed by Ruth Leitman
Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of the United States, from 2017 to 2024, the documentary film “No One Asked You” features a predominantly white group of people (and some African Americans and a few Latin people and Asian people) who are on both sides of the debate over abortion rights and policies in the United States.
Culture Clash: Abortion Access Front, a non-profit group founded by comedian/writer Lizz Winstead, encounters obstacles in the group’s activism for abortion rights.
Culture Audience: “No One Asked You” will appeal primarily to people who are inclined to have pro-choice viewpoints and are interested in documenatries about grass-roots activism for reproductive rights.
“No One Asked You” gives an insightful chronicle of the pro-choice activism of Abortion Access Front (formerly known as Lady Parts Justice League) from 2017 to 2024. The documentary infuses comedy as a way to deal with the animosity that the activists get. Because the documentary is told from the activists’ point of view, people who are opposed to what these activists are doing are not really the intended audience for the film. However, “No One Asked You” does show the viewpoints of people who want abortion to be illegal everywhere by having footage of these anti-abortion activists and politicians expressing their opinions in TV interviews and at public gatherings.
Directed by Ruth Leitman, “No One Asked You” had its world premiere at the 2023 edition of DOC NYC, where it was a runner-up for the Audience Award. “No One Asked You” was originally planned as a documentary series titled “Lady Parts Justice in the New World Order,” whch premiered two episodes at DOC NYC in 2018. The series didn’t get a distribution deal, so the documentary was revamped as a feature film with the title “No One Asked You,” with updated footage.
Lizz Winstead, co-creator of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” founded the non-profit group Lady Parts Justice League in 2015, and is the driving force in all of the group’s initiatives. As she explains in “No One Asked You,” the group changed its name in 2019 to Abortion Access Front so that it would have a title that is inclusive to all genders and to take away the stigma associated with the word “abortion.” Abortion Access Front has fundraising initiatives (often through comedy shows) for pro-choice causes, provides assistance to those who give and receive abortion services, and participates in public protests and campaigns for pro-choice and reproductive rights.
In 2017, the group embarked on a Vagical Mystery Tour across the United States to visit various facilities that provide abortion care to help workers escort patients into clinics and provide other assistance to facility employees. As shown in the documentary, anti-abortion protesters often station themselves in front of or near these clinics and do some form of shaming that ranges from religious preaching to aggressively insulting or harassing patients and pro-choice activists. Abortion Access Front volunteers counteract some of the hate with comedic remarks, even if the people who gets these remarks have little or no chance of changing their angry tactics.
Winstead, who has on-camera and voiceover commentary throughout the documentary, says in the beginning of the movie: “Our movement watched abortion erode since 1973.” During the course of making the documentary, predictions and warnings turned out to be true that the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that gave federal protections to make abortion legal in the United States. In 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade, several states began passing strict abortion laws that have the biggest effect on pregnant women and pregnant girls who can’t afford to travel to states where they can get safe and legal abortions.
Abortion is a personal issue for Winstead, who says in the documentary (as she has said in many other interviews) the first time she had sex at age 16, she got pregnant. It was an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy by her and the fellow student who impregnated her and blamed her for getting pregnant. Winstead says wryly that she got a safe and legal abortion but had to get the money by stealing it from the father of the teen who impregnated her. There’s a brief scene in the documentary about going back to her alma mater Southwest High School in Minnesota because she was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame.
The Vagical Mystery Tour footage includes the group’s visits to various clinics, comedy shows to raise funds and awareness and the group attending public protests. The group also gets involved in educating communities and protesting aganst crisis pregnancy centers, which are not medical facilities but are centers (usually funded by religions groups) whose main purpose is to tell women and girls not to have abortions. Abortion Access Front objects to any deceptive or misleading information that these crisis pregnancy centers give to unsuspecting people.
A scene in the movie shows intern Solange Azor and comedian Alex English pretending to be an unmarried couple with an unplanned pregancy and going to a crisis pregnancy center. The undercover video footage that they took is limited, but it shows an unidentified center worker carefully choosing words when describing what the center is about, by avoiding calling it a medical facilty and trying to downplay the center’s religious agenda. Azor and English then reported that they were interviewed separately at the center and were treated very differently, with Azor gettng more lectures shaming her into practicing abstinence from non-marital sex.
Other past or present Lady Parts Justice League/Abortion Access Front people who are in the documentary include marketing manager Moji Alowode-El, former managing director/head of production Kat Green, and former communications director Nicole Moore. The issue of race comes up a few times women of color are disproportionately affected by stricter abortion laws. Many crisis pregnancy centers are operated by white people and are set up in predominantly black communities.
Moore (who is black) comments in the documentary during the 2018 mid-term elections: “Black women are changing the face and the tone of these elections. People don’t even see their privilege They don’t even understand how they are oppressing other people. Step back and let black women talk about reproductive justice because it’s all connected when you’re talking about social change.”
Elsewhere in the documentary, it’s pointed out that many right-wing anti-abortion activists were among those in the mob who went to the U.S. Capitol on June 6, 2021, with the intent of overturning the election results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. An epilogue mentions that Abortion Access Front has been involved in reporting anti-abortion extremists who break laws, including Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances [FACE] laws, resulting in numerous arrests and convictions. Winstead says in the documentary that pro-choice activists and supporters should not be passive by overlooking the lawbreaking done in the name of anti-abortion.
Several employees of clinics who provide abortion services are featured in the documentary—most notably Derenda Hancock, a clinic escort at the Jackson Women’s Health Organization (also known as the Pink House because the building was a painted pink) in Jackson, Mississippi. Hancock engages with anti-abortion activists not by getting into shouting matches but by reasoning with them on a personable level. Even though she is cordial, her patience is also tested by those who accost the clinic’s patients and workers, and she nearly breaks down in tears during one particular emotionally draining incident.
“No One Asked You” also features people who own or work at facilities that provide abortion services and who talk about how their own lives are at risk because of constant death threats from anti-abortion extremists. The abortion providers in the documentary include Whole Woman’s Health founder Amy Hagstrom Miller, Northland Family Planning owner/CEO Renee Chelian, Trust Women CEO Julie Burkhart, Northland Family Planning vice president Laura Chelian (Renee’s daughter), Jackson Women’s Health Organization director Shannon Brewer and Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who died in 2023, at age 81.
The comedians shown performing at the Lady Parts Justice League/Abortion Access Front fundraising shows include Sarah Silverman, English, Joyelle Johnson, Gina Yashere, Greg Proops, Mehran Khaghani, Helen Hong, Jaye McBride, Ian Harvie and Aida Rodriguez. At an event titled Life Is a Living Nightmare: A Telethon to Fix It, actor Mark Hamill is a participating entertainer. Singer/songwriter Jill Solube is shown performing at another event.
The anti-abortion activists who get screen time in “No One Asked You” include Mississippi politicians Dan Eubanks and Steve Hopkins, who co-authored a bill that would ban abortions in Mississippi for any pregnancy past six weeks. The fate of that bill is mentioned in the documentary. Operation Save America officials Jason Storms (current national director) and Rusty Thomas (former national director) are seen giving anti-abortion speeches.
Winstead doesn’t mince words when she describes the Operation Save America people who advocate for violence as “domestic terrorists.” As a sobering reminder of how abortion providers are targets for murder, there’s a scene in the movie that briefly features David Gunn Jr., the son of Dr. David Gunn Sr., who was murdered in 1993, in Pensacola, Florida, because Dr. Gunn was an abortion provider. David Gunn Jr. confronts anti-abortion protestors at a clinic and points out the hypocrisy of so-called pro-lifers who think it’s justified to murder abortion providers.
“No One Asked You” is not trying to solve the ongoing controversies over abortion. However, the documentary does a capable job of raising questions and awareness of how much control people in the United States might or might not want the government to have over their personal family planning. Because of the involvement of so many religious groups (mostly Christian) in trying to get abortion banned everywhere in the United States, these matters also involve concerns about separations between church and state. Ultimately, as long as these issues continue to be extremely divisive, there will never a resolution that will please everyone who has an opinion about abortion.
Ruthless Films released “No One Asked You” in select U.S. cinemas on October 18, 2024. Jolt premiered the movie on October 25, 2024.