Ricki Lake (l) and Abby Epstein have teamed up for a second film about women’s rights around their bodies (Picture: Getty Images)
The release of Ricki Lake’s documentary, The Business of Birth Control, hasn’t come without its challenges as the iconic talk show host found out this year.
Alongside her longtime filmmaking partner Abby Epstein, Ricki, 54, has unpacked the complex relationship between hormonal birth control and women’s health and liberation.
It follows on from the pair’s 2008 documentary The Business of Being Born and happened to release in the same year as the controversial Roe v Wade decision, which overturned 50 years of abortion rights in the US this summer.
In this week’s episode of Metro.co.uk podcast Smut Drop, Ricki and Abby discuss the uphill battle they have faced in spotlighting the birth control documentary in the US given the ongoing debate about women’s rights to decide what they do with their bodies.
Speaking to Miranda Kane, Abby began with a disclaimer: ‘We are not religious right-wingers, we are not anti-birth control. We are pro-reproductive right, pro-access and pro-options for all birth control with informed consent.’
Discussing what it has been like to release the film in the year of Roe v Wade, Ricki explained: ‘It’s a nightmare.
The pair have been firm friends since meeting in 1999 (Picture: Getty Images)
‘It’s been so hard, it’s so defeating because it is such a well done film that every woman of reproductive age and even the mothers of women of reproductive age should watch this film, not to scare the s**t out of them but to educate them so they do their due diligence, advocate for themselves and know that there’s pros and cons to all of these choices.
‘It’s really pathetic that we’re taking a pill that was developed 60 years ago and there’s been no intervention. It’s time.’
Abby went on to highlight the volatile attitudes towards women’s birth control in America at the moment, and said it has been ‘refreshing’ to debut the film overseas ‘without Roe v Wade hanging over it’.
Ricki has been outspoken about the risks of certain birth control pills (Picture: FilmMagic)
Abby said there has been ‘nefarious pushback’ towards their film (Picture: WireImage)
She said: ‘It is so refreshing to talk about these issues without the political football that happens in the United States and what we’ve experienced in this country has been this very nefarious pushback with people affiliated with pharma, with marketing, with mail order birth control pills and they’re very threatened by this message so you’ve got that going against us, it’s very hard to talk about this film on a morning show in the United States… the message is being suppressed horribly in the United States.’
Ricki, host of former popular talk show Ricki Lake, joked that the only thing missing in her ‘work-wife relationship’ with Abby was a salary.
They met each other in 1999 when Abby directed Ricki in The Vagina Monologues, and they’ve been close friends since.
‘I’ve never had a better working relationship. She’s a freaking genius and a brilliant filmmaker,’ Ricki added on a sweeter note.
On the importance of their work, she said: ‘Both of these films are bigger than us.’
To watch The Business of Birth Control, you can register via this link to find out when the free online showings take place.
The full interview with Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein is on the latest episode of Metro.co.uk’s Smut Drop podcast, out today.
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The Business of Birth Control unpacks the complex relationship women face.
