A political video by a novelist and a former “Sex and the City” co-producer caught the approving eye Monday of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s political arm. It features young girls encouraging their mothers to vote to re-elect President Barack Obama so they can continue to have access to abortion.
The children in the video, who range in age from toddlers to their early teens, urge their mothers to vote for abortion access because they cannot.
“Mom, I can’t vote yet. But you can. So when you go into the voting booth, please think about me,” the girls say.
“Think about me when you vote. And please, please, please, vote for President Obama. Otherwise your vote is a vote against me. Mom, make the right choice, so when I grow up, I can still have one,” the girls continue.
The video ends with white text on a black background concluding “Make the right choice, while you still can.”
Watch:
The pro-life website LifeNews, which first highlighted the video, described it as “exploitive.” But Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Kelly Simmons, one of the video’s co-producers, tweeted YouTube links on Monday.
Powerful video: Daughters ask their mothers to #vote for President @barackobama. Watch and RT: bit.ly/Su8lq7
— Planned Parenthood (@PPact) November 5, 2012
It’s awesome! RT @kellysimmons: So proud that @ppact picked up my video, “Daughters for Obama.”Watch & please RT:bit.ly/Su8lq7
— Planned Parenthood (@PPact) November 5, 2012
Debra Kent, the former co-producer on the “Sex and the City” television series, created the film with Simmons, her friend and the author of “The Bird House” and “Standing Still.”
Kent, who now works mainly on commercials, told The Daily Caller that she was inspired to create the video while she was working on ads in Texas and Mississippi. She “was appalled,” Kent told TheDC, “by things I heard and observed regarding women and women’s rights.”
“When I got back to New York, a writer friend, Kelly Simmons, told me her idea for a spot where daughters ask their fathers to make the right choice when they vote,” Kent explained in an email to TheDC. “That didn’t quite work for me — fathers and young girls seemed too potentially suggestive. So we rewrote the script addressing it to both moms and dads. Ultimately I felt mothers talking to daughters would be most effective.”
According to Kent, the video was created at little cost.
“Everyone on the crew worked for free. The equipment was all donated. Although we used a casting director, most of the girls are either daughters of friends, my nieces, a girl who lives in my building, a girl I saw while waking my dog, etc,” she continued.
“I rushed into doing the spot in kind of a passion frenzy without giving much thought to the financial end, so I wound up picking up the cost for any food, taxis, hard drives, etc. A bit of a financial hit but not terrible. We just shot it last week and are still actualizing the receipts. But it was a great experience — so different from the over $1M jobs I’d done earlier in the summer.”
Kent added that the video is her “political contribution to the Obama campaign,” as she felt knocking on doors in 2008 served little purpose other than annoying people.
Kent’s description on the YouTube video adds that her pro-choice passion stems from her grandmother’s experience giving birth over age 50 to a daughter with Down Syndrome because it was illegal for her to have an abortion. The child’s eventual death “devastated” he grandmother, she said.
“Because when Felice was 6, she died of Leukemia,” she wrote. “Her death devastated my grandmother, who was heartbroken and never fully the same. This is the kind of situation we’re facing if we elect government officials who are pro-life.”
Planned Parenthood has been an avid supporter of President Obama, putting millions toward his re-election and boasting a president, Cecile Richards, who has been on the campaign trail with Obama and is a devoted surrogate.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is pro-life. He has said on the campaign trail that he believes the “Roe vs. Wade” Supreme Court case should be overturned. He has also said he would end federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
Romney does not oppose abortion in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at risk.
