Planned Parenthood is an organization that provides increasing numbers of low income and/or minority women with essential healthcare that would not be available to them otherwise. Though it is primarily associated with reproductive health (only 3% of health services provided are abortion services), PP provides a wide variety of treatments for conditions that are unique to women. Planned Parenthood provides services for breast exams, cervical cancer screening, and testing and treatment for STD’s. As such, PP is essential to the health of millions of women across the United States. In recent years there has been a concerted effort to defund PP because of the reproductive services they provide.
Joe Corallo and Molly Jackson, two editors at ComicMix.com are very concerned about the efforts to close down PP, and as such have come up with a project to help raise funds to keep planned Parenthood going. Mine!: A Comics Collection to Benefit Planned Parenthood is a graphic novel anthology of original short stories relevant to the PP experience. As there are a myriad (over 50 different writers and artists) of creative people behind the stories you can be assured that they will address every single genre of writing and art, and some new ones they made up along the way. Some of my favorite people (Neil Gaiman, Frank Conniff, Becky Cloonan, Gail Simone, Mark Waid, and Mara Wilson) are involved so you know I’ll have a copy. “Mine!” promises to have something for everyone, and as such should be supported by everyone. Hillary Clinton said “You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health” and it’s true. Activism is not for everybody, and if it’s not for you the next best thing is devoting some of your focus and money towards helping the cause. What better way to do that than by reading comic books?
