Plush uteruses are a symbol of protest in a campaign for reproductive freedom

As the debate surrounding reproductive rights becomes a primary force driving Americans across the political spectrum to the polls in the upcoming midterm elections, North-Carolina-based agency The Variable is aiming to draw attention to the negative impacts of anti abortion legislation, via a campaign involving plush toy uteruses. Earlier this month, the agency unveiled the pink, uterus-shaped plush toys called “Woombies” in the lead-up to the Women’s March in Washington, D.C.. It distributed the plushies to activist groups supporting reproductive rights and legislators on both sides of the debate. And at the march itself, agency members not only passed out uterine plushies to the crowd, but also erected a 15-foot-tall inflatable uterus across from the Washington Monument. The Variable also launched Woombies.com, an e-commerce site that sends one of the bright pink plush uteruses to the buyer and one to a politician of their choice who is “actively working to reduce women’s access to equitable healthcare and reproductive rights.” The website also offers package deals that deliver Woombies to multiple politicians at once, including the members of the Supreme Court who overturned Roe v. Wade in June and a group of twelve legislators outspoken about their opposition to abortion, including conservative senators Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell. All proceeds from sales through the website will be donated to Planned Parenthood. Woombies aren’t just a novelty—they’re a protest in the form of a plushie, allowing Americans to “send politicians a womb of their own so they’ll leave ours alone,” according to the agency’s statement. “Does Mitch’s neck scrotum of evil make you want to go medieval? Do you want to tell Matt Gaetz to shut his face? Do you think Ted Cruz should mind his business? You’re not alone,” the description for the latter package reads. “Buy the Dirty Dozen bundle, and we’ll send Woombies to the twelve men leading the fight against reproductive justice on your behalf.” To promote the launch of the e-commerce platform, the agency also produced a series of videos packed with key facts and statistics about consequences of eliminating abortion and other reproductive rights. A series of videos revolving around the “Dystopian Shopping Network,” a parody of the QVC, feature a group of female hosts cheerily peddling Woombies while simultaneously disparaging the politicians attacking reproductive rights. In one, the hosts satirically list events that Woombies would make a perfect gift for, from “forced baby showers” to “completely avoidable deaths that occur during childbirth,” before using the plushies to muffle their screams of rage at the “death cries of [their] civil liberties.” The agency also released several shorter video spots that will be distributed across social media platforms like TikTok, including one in the style of a commercial jingle for a children’s toy, starring puppet politicians who receive a Woombie. The Woombie campaign is deeply personal for Sarah Mosseller, an associate creative director at The Variable, who spent over a year in cancer treatment that she could have easily avoided if her doctors had agreed to remove her ovaries. Because Mosseller was still of childbearing age, they refused, repeatedly telling her “you may change your mind and want kids someday," she said. Mosseller’s experience with medical misogyny inspired the Woombie campaign and its push to encourage Americans to support politicians in favor of reproductive freedom in the midterm elections. Members of the agency will launch another activation in Washington, D.C., in the week prior to the elections “to remind everyone what is on the line this election season—bodily autonomy for every citizen in the country,” according to the agency’s statement. “People who can become pregnant deserve bodily autonomy now,” Mosseller said. “Federal and state governments are denying citizens fundamental human liberty and people are dying because of it.”

Plush uteruses are a symbol of protest in a campaign for reproductive freedom

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