By Katie Halper • @kthalps • 10 years ago

Vote today! Because Joan Jett says so

Still not convinced the mid-terms matter? Check out this great PSA video in which awesome people, including Joan Jett, Carrie Brownstein, Jemima Kirke, Lesley Gore, Tavi Gevinson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Sia, Hannah Simone, and Alia Shawkat, lip synch to Joan Jet’s 1980 hit Bad Reputation to get out the vote. 

In case the video isn’t enough, the Department of Peace, “an art collective geared toward creating consciousness-raising content and inspiring young people toward political participation and community-oriented action,” provides some scary statistics to show how “the most regressive, anti­-woman, anti­-voting, anti-equality laws are being passed on the state level.”

• 29 states in America allow a rapist to sue a women for custody and/or visitation of the child birthed from that rape.

• 87 percent of all US Counties have no abortion provider.

• 35 percent of American women will have an abortion by the age of 45.

• In 35 states, Medicaid recipients do not have abortion coverage.

• In 13 states, a pharmacist can legally refuse to disperse birth control, even if you have a prescription.

• 26 states have waiting periods for abortion; only 11 have waiting periods for guns.

• In 17 statea, the government forces women to go to counseling before she can have an abortion.

• In 32 states, terminally ill women are forced to carry a pregnancy to term, regardless of her wishes or her living will.

• More than 50 abortion clinics were shut down by unnecessary laws from 2010­-2013. Not including the dozens that were shut in Texas in the last month.

And the song’s lyrics work pretty well!

Related:
Vote today! Because the GOP is really, really hoping you won’t
Vote today! Because reproductive rights are lost when Republicans gain control of state legislatures

AvatarKatie Halper is a comedian, writer, and filmmaker. 

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Born and raised on the mean streets of New York City’s Upper West Side, Katie Halper is a comic, writer, blogger, satirist and filmmaker based in New York. Katie graduated from The Dalton School (where she teaches history) and Wesleyan University (where she learned that labels are for jars.) A director of Living Liberally and co-founder/performer in Laughing Liberally, Katie has performed at Town Hall, Symphony Space, The Culture Project, D.C. Comedy Festival, all five Netroots Nations, and The Nation Magazine Cruise, where she made Howard Dean laugh! and has appeared with Lizz Winstead, Markos Moulitsas, The Yes Men, Cynthia Nixon and Jim Hightower. Her writing and videos have appeared in The New York Times, Comedy Central, The Nation Magazine, Gawker, Nerve, Jezebel, the Huffington Post, Alternet and Katie has been featured in/on NY Magazine, LA Times, In These Times, Gawker,Jezebel, MSNBC, Air America, GritTV, the Alan Colmes Show, Sirius radio (which hung up on her once) and the National Review, which called Katie “cute and some what brainy.” Katie co-produced Tim Robbins’s film Embedded, (Venice Film Festival, Sundance Channel); Estela Bravo’s Free to Fly (Havana Film Festival, LA Latino Film Festival); was outreach director for The Take, Naomi Klein/Avi Lewis documentary about Argentine workers (Toronto & Venice Film Festivals, Film Forum); co-directed New Yorkers Remember the Spanish Civil War, a video for Museum of the City of NY exhibit, and wrote/directed viral satiric videos including Jews/ Women/ Gays for McCain.

Katie is a writer, comedian, filmmaker, and New Yorker.

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