How we talk about abortion now: truth, science and not the Texas way

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/13/abortion-obama-planned-parenthood-speechwriter

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Lauren Peterson is a senior advisor at Planned Parenthood Federation of America and speechwriter for the organization's president, Cecile Richards. Peterson travels around the country with Richards, going to rallies, events - or wherever the politics necessitate.

I met Peterson at a Planned Parenthood event in San Diego last year, when I spoke on a panel with Richards and Sarah Weddington (the lawyer who argued Roe v Wade before the Supreme Court). Peterson had some things to say about careers in speechwriting (by way of the Obama administration), abortion politics (by way of Texas) and, of course, The West Wing – all while en route to Des Moines to mark the retirement of Jill June, president of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland.

How did you know you wanted to go into speechwriting?

After I graduated from college, I was really into audio documentary – the kind of thing you'd hear on This American Life or All Things Considered. I would interview people, then edit the interview into a piece for the radio. That's how I learned that I love helping other people tell their stories – asking questions, listening to what they have to say, then creating something that reflects their personality and their ideas. And that's basically what speechwriting is.

You worked for the Obama campaign - can you talk about who you wrote for? What was that like?

I was on the digital team, so I wrote for everyone – from helping the guy who won "Dinner with Barack" and regretted not taking the French fry offered to him by President Obama (hi, Scott!), to sending an email to supporters, to writing video scripts for just about everyone, to working on our website. I tweeted, blogged, produced audio pieces, learned from our amazing speechwriting team and, best of all, traveled around the country to campaign rallies where the president was speaking.

It could be frustrating at times – when you're working on a campaign of that scale, you sometimes have to compromise on issues you really care about. We were all exhausted all the time.

And how did you start working for Planned Parenthood?

I heard Cecile speak on the campaign trail in 2012, when she had taken time off to volunteer as a surrogate for President Obama. She had this hilarious top-10 list of the reasons why women were absolutely going to make the difference in the election, and why they should support the president. As the campaign was wrapping up, people started asking me what I wanted to do next. I would say, "I want to work for someone like Cecile Richards!"

That turned out to be an actual job posted on the Planned Parenthood website.

It's my understanding that there are not exactly a ton of female speechwriters. Why do you think that is?

I think like anything else, it takes some bravado to break into speechwriting if you're not already there. And a disproportionate number of the people who are already "there" are guys. I will say this: in my experience, they are incredibly nice, generous guys who recognize that our field isn't catching up to the rest of the world as quickly as any of us would like.

The four people who pushed me to try my hand at speechwriting, who encouraged me during my job search, and who now answer my frantic emails with subject lines like "How do you write a commencement speech?!" – they are all extremely talented feminist speechwriters ... who happen to be men.

Right now, there's not exactly a lack of things to write about when it comes to reproductive rights - especially in places like Texas and Louisiana, states where abortion care may be completely obliterated. How do you balance relaying the urgency of these issues while still remaining upbeat and inspiring - not just in speeches, but in life ... for your own sanity?

Two strategies for this, both of which I blatantly stole from Cecile.

We spent a lot of last summer in Texas, where I saw how desperate the situation is for women who live there and have to go to extraordinary lengths just to get basic health care or access safe and legal abortion, which is – hello! – a constitutional right and has been for 100% of the time I've been alive. At the same time, I also got to see people turn out by the thousands to rallies all over the state. ... In states that definitely don't make it easy, people are doing extraordinary things that inspire me even on the toughest days.

Two: I take a deep breath and a step back and think about how far women actually have come. Less than 100 years ago, women couldn't even vote. I got the chance to work on a presidential campaign, and now I get to travel all over the country writing about women's rights. Just in case I forget, I have a tattoo of the date of the ratification of the 19th Amendment on my wrist.

Bad science - like the erroneous link between abortion and breast cancer or mental health problems - has made its way to policy. How do you see battle back against that?

This never ceases to enrage me! You're entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts, right?! I think it's hard for someone without a background in medicine or science to come in and fact-check the junk science that has been the justification for everything from medically unnecessary admitting privileges to mandatory "information" that doctors in some states must distribute, by law, to women seeking an abortion.

What do you know now about speechwriting that you wish you would have known five years ago?

Five years ago I was working for the Wisconsin Film Festival, so I think it's safe to say that everything I knew about speechwriting at that point in my life, I learned from Sam Seaborn.