Showrunners have now raised $3 million for the National Network of Abortion Funds in an effort to protect abortion access for anyone who needs abortions, including production employees in abortion-hostile states.
In a letter on Friday, the coalition — which is comprised of nearly 1,500 television showrunners, creators and directors — also announced it had made progress with each of the major studios (Amazon Studios, Apple TV+, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount, The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery) toward implementing abortion safety protocols for all employees in these states.
“While there is still much work to be done, we can share that all nine studios we contacted are engaging directly and individually with us to address the immediate need for safety, privacy and legal protections for their employees,” the letter reads.
One of the solutions these studios are seeking to implement is a 24-hour Reproductive Health Safety Hotline for productions in states that have outlawed or restricted abortion. The resource will “help workers navigate the medical and legal challenges all people living and working in these states now face.”
The coalition also vowed to continue to hold the studios accountable “to identify and implement solutions for the issues which have yet to be addressed.”
In late July, a group of 400 female showrunners outlined a list of specific demands for each studio. They were shortly joined by nearly 600 male creatives and around the same number of directors. On Aug. 10, the studios sent in a joint response that was decried by organizations such as Women in Film for ignoring certain stipulations like ceasing donations to anti-abortion politicians.
The coalition was quick to thank the studios for their initial response but also assert that it fell “far short of a response sufficient to ensure workplace safety and prevent inevitable gender discrimination within our industry.” Additionally, they outlined a list of specific stipulations that they deemed necessary for employees in anti-abortion states.
Separate of the initiative directed at major studios and their executives, the collective went public with a fundraising campaign for NNAF, which seeks to raise a total of $5 million. The likes of J.J. Abrams, Mindy Kaling, Damon Lindelof, Ava DuVernay, Shonda Rhimes, Jesse Williams, Dana Fox and more have posted about the effort, under the hashtag #hollywood4abortionaccess.
