Dirty Dancing, Roe, & the Future of Abortion

Since 2018, Marylanders have gathered on or around the anniversary of Roe v. Wade to watch Dirty Dancing, celebrate our wins, and discuss the connection to the abortion story in the film to the fights we have today.

Abortion is health care. Abortion is economic justice. Abortion access is vital to people of all races, ethnicities, socio-economic statuses, genders, sexualities, and religions. Someone you love has had an abortion.

During the 2023 Maryland legislative session, several bills will help move us forward, even as extremists across the country would take us back to the reality lived by Baby and Penny at Kellerman's in 1963.

"When I made the movie in 1987, about 1963, I put in the illegal abortion and everyone said, 'Why? There was Roe v. Wade--what are you doing this for?'" screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein told Broadly in 2017. "I said, 'Well, I don't know that we will always have Roe v. Wade,' and I got a lot of pushback on that."

For years we watched this movie in celebration of the Roe Anniversary. This year it takes on a different tone. Join us as we discuss this film, who's in it, who's missing from it, and how it illustrates our past AND our present, and how it can inform our future in the fight for abortion justice for all.

Registration details will follow.