Martha Plimpton's A is For Uses Artists' Voices To Remove The Stigma Around Abortion

A is For co-founder Martha Plimpton discusses the nonprofit's mission statement and the ways in which it promotes abortion care as an intrinsic part of healthcare.

Video Transcript

RICKY CAMILLERI: Tell me about A is For, the organization that you helped found. How long has it been running? And what exactly is it for?

MARTHA PLIMPTON: Well, I think we've been doing this about-- and I hate to even say this-- but about eight years now. We are an organization that uses arts and artists' voices to eradicate the stigma surrounding abortion and to change the conversation around the whole subject of reproductive justice in general, and specifically about abortion and reproductive health care. And we reach out to artists all over the world and all over the country.

And here in New York every year, we have our sort of signature event, Broadway Acts for Women, which is where a bunch of Broadway stars come. And then the audience gets to bid on what karaoke song they're going to sing with our live band. It's really exciting. And so, of course--

RICKY CAMILLERI: What have been previous winners of that, just out of curiosity, if you remember some of them?

MARTHA PLIMPTON: Oh, well, the winners are in the audience. Because they bid. So they get choose the song. But Patti LuPone did our first year. She did "Natural Woman." Actually, she brought the whole cast up with her. Betty Buckley did it one year. She sang a Radiohead song, "High and Dry." That was pretty awesome.

So we've got a lot of great, incredible artists come and do that. But of course, this year, it was is going to be on May 3rd. Along with every other organization and every other not-for-profit that was planning their spring fundraising, that's had to be put on hold. So we're sort of working on other contingency plans.

And for one thing, we have this play-writing contest that actually started way before all of this even began, which is pretty cool. We're asking for submissions for one-act plays that are written on the subject of reproductive justice or in the realm of reproductive health care.

So they can be sci-fi. They can be realistic. They can be monologues. It doesn't matter just as long as long as they're 60 pages or under. And we're giving a cash prize. I think we're announcing at the end of May. But we may push that, now, obviously, because of extenuating circumstances. But it's really exciting. Because it's a way for us to sort open up our vocabulary, our emotional vocabulary, about what this really means.

Because in our country, as you know, we have this sort of cultural deficit in terms of how we think about abortion care and reproductive health care in general, but specifically abortion. And of course, these issues dovetail into one another. And so we need to change that conversation.

Because, as you say, when you very kindly introduce the subject, you were saying, well, it makes sense for us to sort of be kind of you know tunnel vision about what's happening in terms of COVID-19. And that's true. But what we don't realize is that, of course, health care is a very broad spectrum of issues, right? And all of these things that involve our health, including abortion and reproductive health care, are floating on the same boat, right? They're all on the same ship.

And each one ends up affecting the other. And that's why I'm glad we're talking about this today. Because people have wanted to sort of separate the two and treat abortion as if it's a special-- they want to put baby in the corner. And-- [COUGH] that's not COVID. It's just a tickle in my throat. Don't worry.

RICKY CAMILLERI: Good to know. Good to know.

MARTHA PLIMPTON: But we're trying to say, you know, you can't do that. So, yeah.

[MUSIC PLAYING]