A new video, produced by “Daily Show” co-creator Lizz Winstead and her abortion rights advocacy group Lady Parts Justice, satirizes the outsize influence that far-right anti-abortion groups have on the political process.
The video specifically targets anti-abortion activist Carol Everett, who played a major role in the passing of Texas’s fetal burial law. In November, Texas governor Greg Abbott approved a new regulation requiring women in the state to provide a burial ceremony or cremation for their aborted or miscarried fetuses. The bill has since been temporarily blocked by a federal judge, and is awaiting an injunction hearing in early January 2017.
Everett spoke at the Texas Department of State Health Services in August in support of the bill ― which she said was a necessary health and safety measure in case women’s fetal tissue was infected with HIV, and thus might risk contaminating sewer systems. Afterwards, she received a donation of $1.65 million from the state of Texas to continue advocating this kind of legislation with her anti-abortion organization, The Heidi Group.
Winstead, who has long been an advocate for reproductive rights, told The Huffington Post that she wanted to make the short film parodying Everett to expose how “advocates with horrible science” are influencing major legislation that affects millions.
There has been plenty of coverage of the Texas burial law itself, but coverage of major anti-abortion players like Everett ― and the influence they hold over legislators ― is just as important, according to Winstead. “I’ve been watching [Everett] for a long time,” she said. “Crackpots are being taken too seriously.”
The video, which also serves as a call to action for an ACLU petition, is a “Shark Tank” spoof, in which Everett’s character tries to sell tiny urns and caskets meant for fetal tissue to a panel of judges, one of whom applauds her idea: “Invent a terrifying moral crisis, and then sell a solution,” he says.
It would be funny if it weren’t so damn close to being true.
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