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Ashley Judd Opposes Georgia's Abortion Ban as a Rape Survivor

Ashley Judd may have begun her career as an actress, but over the years she has become an outspoken public advocate and activist for women’s rights around the world. She was one of the first women to go on the record with her allegations against Harvey Weinstein, has spoken passionately at the Women’s March, and is well-known for her global humanitarian work.

This week, Judd spoke at the Women in the World Summit about another cause close to her heart: abortion rights. The conversation between Judd and moderator Katie Couric turned to Georgia’s controversial “heartbeat bill” which, if passed, would prohibit abortions after a heartbeat is detected which is typically five to six weeks into a woman’s pregnancy. At that point, many women don’t yet realize they’re pregnant.

“As everyone knows, and I’m very open about it, I’m a three-time rape survivor. And one of the times I was raped, there was conception,” Judd said, per People. “And I’m very thankful I was able to access safe and legal abortion. Because the rapist, who is a Kentuckian…has paternity rights in Kentucky and Tennessee. I would’ve had to co-parent with my rapist.” (Judd resides in Tennessee.)

“So having safe access to abortion was personally important to me and, as I said earlier, democracy starts with our skin. We’re not supposed to regulate what we choose to do with our insides,” she continued.

People notes that it is unclear whether the rape that Judd speaks of resulted in a conviction because that could have nullified parental rights for the man, but Judd’s point is clear nonetheless. And it’s yet another chilling reminder of what is at stake for women when it comes to passing anti-choice legislation. There can be lifelong consequences to legislating what women can and cannot do with their own bodies.

Judd, along with other high-profile people in Hollywood like Alyssa Milano and Mandy Moore, have circulated a petition that promises to pull production from the state if the bill is signed into law.

There could be a serious economic impact for the state if Hollywood productions stop filming there though it’s still unclear at this point whether Georgia Governor Brian Kemp will sign the bill into law—in which case it will surely be challenged in the courts. He has until May 12 to make that decision.

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Ivanka Trump Opposes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Federal Jobs Guarantee

“I don’t think most Americans, in their heart, want to be given something,” Ivanka Trump told Fox News’ Steve Hilton in an interview about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal proposal earlier this week. “I’ve spent a lot of time traveling around this country over the last four years. People want to work for what they get.” (In addition to an outline on how to achieve net-zero emissions in the next decade, the Green New Deal proposal would also create millions of new jobs and offer a guaranteed federal job at a livable wage; one recent poll found 71 percent of Americans supported a hike in the federal minimum wage. But OK, Ivanka.)

It’s a rich observation from a woman who has quite literally been given not just “something,” but much, much more wealth and privilege than most Americans will ever see. On Fox, Trump went on: “I think that this idea of a guaranteed minimum is not something most people want. They want the ability to be able to secure a job. They want the ability to live in a country where there’s the potential for upward mobility.”

It was a comical, if tragic picture: Trump after all has a guaranteed job (working for her father’s real estate empire and in his White House) and a rather maximum wage (she and her husband Jared Kushner have made at least $82 million in outside income as they serve in the White House). What qualifies her to speculate about what Americans in desperate financial situations with which she has zero experience do and do not want?

I know just how rose-colored her vision must be. Early in my own career, I had an obvious leg up. My mother is a famous writer, and so when I decided to write, too, I began miles ahead of the usual start line. I sold my first novel at 19 for way more than I would have if my mother weren’t Erica Jong. I knew better than to believe that talent alone got me to where I am now. Nepotism is deeply unfair, and anyone who says otherwise is blinded by their own delusions.

Someone who did not benefit from nepotism? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who wasted no time and minced no words in her response to Trump on Twitter. During her now-famous primary campaign, she wore actual holes into her shoes as she and her staff knocked on 120,000 doors. The contrast could not be starker: Ivanka Trump has worn glass Manolo Blahniks since birth, but somehow convinced herself she pulled each up with (custom, probably) bootstraps. Ocasio-Cortez was so determined to walk in her constituents’ shoes—to understand their needs and dreams—that she shredded her own.

Unlike Trump, AOC wasn’t gifted a cushy job in her father’s real estate business. Before she was elected, she worked as a waitress and a bartender. One has to imagine that the woman who knocked on all those doors and worked late shifts might know a little more about what the average American wants than the daughter of real estate impresario who married the heir to another real estate fortune does.

Wealth can insulate a person from the real world, but alas no rich person has figured out how to make it fend off negative press. In Vanity Fair, Bess Levin wrote, “Ivanka Trump comes from a long line of assholes who confuse inheriting money with hard work.” In the Daily Beast, Erin Gloria Ryan wrote, “Ivanka, like her father and siblings, was born on third base and thinks she invented baseball.” The critiques were written, retweeted, and amplified far and wide.

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