Hillary Clinton Cites ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ in Planned Parenthood Gala Speech
Hillary Clinton is concerned about life imitating art – specifically, the dystopian future of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Vulture reports. During her speech at the Planned Parenthood Gala in New York on Tuesday, Clinton referenced the Hulu original series while criticizing the current effort to pass the American Health Care Act, which includes proposals that could restrict access birth control, abortion and maternity care and cut funding for Planned Parenthood.
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“The show has prompted important conversation about women’s rights and autonomy,” Clinton said. “In ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ women’s rights are gradually, slowly stripped away…Let’s respect people’s convictions, but never back down from our commitment to defend the ability of every woman to make these deeply personal decisions for herself.”
Based on the novel by Margaret Atwood, “The Handmaid’s Tale” revolves around a woman named Offred (Elisabeth Moss), one of the few fertile women left in Gilead, a dystopia where the birth rate is dangerously low and women no longer have rights. Offred is therefore a “vessel” for the Commander (Joseph Fiennes) and his wife (Yvonne Strahovski), but clings to her past, when she was a free woman with a husband (O. T. Fagbenle) and daughter (Jordana Blake), both of whom she’s since lost.
“As one character says, ‘We didn’t look up from our phones until it was too late,’” Clinton said. “It is not too late for us, but we have to encourage the millions of women and men who support Planned Parenthood’s mission to keep fighting. To paraphrase Margaret Atwood, we can never let them grind us down.”
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