SAG-AFTRA Condemns Supreme Court Abortion Draft Decision: ‘We Will Not Stay Silent’

Actors’ guild slams “injudicious attack on women’s rights and health”

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SAG-AFTRA has weighed in on the abortion rights fight, slamming what it calls a “deplorable and alarming” move that will deny reproductive rights to millions of American women.

“Everyone should be able to access the healthcare they need. The draft Supreme Court opinion would be a tragic reversal of 50 years of progress on women’s access to healthcare – it is deplorable and alarming,” read a statement from the actors’ guild. “SAG-AFTRA strives to protect and support the rights of members to have access to necessary health services. The dangers to women’s rights and health by the so-called heartbeat bills are an affront to the protections that women have had for decades.”

“We are closely monitoring the legal environment around these laws and we will not stay silent in the face of this injudicious attack on women’s rights and health,“ it continued.

SAG-AFTRA is not the first of the major Hollywood guilds to speak out, as the writers of WGA West on Wednesday issued its own statement urging studios and employers to take into account women’s reproductive laws and rights when selecting shooting locations for film and TV productions.

“In light of the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion on abortion rights, we want to reaffirm our Guild’s commitment to fighting on our members’ behalf against inequality and discrimination. Women’s rights are human rights, and any laws that ban or limit a woman’s right to choose are dangerous and set a precedent for further erosion of our collective civil rights,” the WGA West board of directors said in its statement. “We call on our employers to consider the laws of each state when choosing production locations to ensure that our members will never be denied full access to reproductive healthcare.”

On Monday, a leaked copy of a Supreme Court draft opinion written by Justice Alito suggested that the court was prepared to overturn the landmark 1971 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion rights.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade would ban or severely restrict abortion access in 26 states, according to pro-choice think tank The Guttmacher Institute. Most of these states would do so via “trigger laws” that could immediately outlaw abortion should the Supreme Court overturn the ban, while others could be poised to revert to archaic laws on the books from before Roe v. Wade made the laws obsolete or others could outlaw abortions within 30 days.

While not fully calling for a boycott of production in states where abortion will likely be made illegal by the Supreme Court’s impending decision, the WGA West statement echoes past calls for boycotts in states like Georgia that have passed legislation restricting reproductive rights.

Such boycotts have faced opposition from both industry figures like Tyler Perry and Democrats like gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams who warned that pulling productions would do economic damage to local communities, many of which have voted Democrat in the past.

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